Is Kawasaki about to pull out all the stops in the power cruiser category with its 2004 Mean Streak? If the rumors we are hearing are true, and the mock photo posted by the well-connected Japanese Magazine Young Machine here is based in reality at all, the answer is yes. 2000cc, anyone?
Less than two years ago, when I attended the press introduction of Kawasaki’s redesigned motocross machines, a Kawasaki executive told the assembled journalists that Kawasaki was “getting back to its roots” and about the release a series of “kick ass, high-performance machines . . . no apologies offered”.
Kawasaki’s existing Mean Streak is a nice machine that we reviewed here. It is not the leader in the power cruiser category when it comes to horsepower, torque and straight-line performance, however, and Kawasaki may be about to address that situation with the 2004 model. We will have to wait and see.