This, a Kawasaki GPz550 from 1981 is the second bike that -like a black hole- sucked me into this madness. I was in high school when this bike came out. And at the time there was nothing else like it in the World. This is the bike that broke the UJM mold and and took all-comers in a bare knuckled brawl in a back alley. It screamed, "I'm fast, sporty and fookin' hooker red. So, step aside amatuers." My fixation with this bike is again squarely my brother Walt's fault. He's the one that brought home a brochure from some-who-knows-where-dealer in Illinois and said something along the lines, "now that's a motorcycle." Though neither one of us would come to own one of these bikes, a promo card with the bike's image from a dealer stayed taped to the inside of my locker at school. Years later I'd come to own the ZRX 1200R that I ride today, and everytime I saddle up I can't help but think about that GPz550.
