Replica Report
REPLICA REPORT
Fast Eddie and the Big Green Kwackers
WHEN IS A REPLICA NOT A REPLICA? WELL, LET’S HAVE a look at Kawasaki’s 1982 KZ1000R Eddie Lawson Replica, meant to commemorate our man Ed’s winning of the previous year’s AMA Superbike crown.
Same lime-green paint, granted, and there was more than a passing resemblance to the racebike, but the ELR was really nothing more than a KZ1000J tarted-up with gold wheels, piggyback shocks, Kerker 4-into-1, cut-down seat and bikini fairing.
Still, it’s a rare tart. “The last really collectible Japanese streetbike,” says Yoshi Kosaka, who runs the Garage Company, a Marina del Rey, California, bookstore and restoration shop. Just 750 were made for the 1982 model year, priced at whatever your smiling Kawasaki shopkeeper wanted to charge. Today, a clean, low-mileage example will set you back between $9000 and $12,000-although frame number 004 was recently shopped around for $20,000. Lawson won the title again in ’82, but then had the bad form to jump ship and take his numberone plate over to Yamaha. Decals for the 1983 KZ1000R were hurriedly changed to read “Superbike Replica.”
Much more of a race-replica-and the obvious inspiration for the ZRX1100-was the SI Superbike, sold to privateer roadracers for the 1982 season, all-up price $10,500. The SI was such a bargain and so good a starting point that the Kawasaki race team bought two for Lawson’s title defense-plus another two for his up-and-coming teammate, some kid by the name of Wayne Rainey.
After Eddie and his S1 won the second championship, the AMA mandated a switch to 750cc Superbikes, and the big, green ELR racers instantly assumed dinosaur status-good news for collectors, bad news if you’d just spent the entire season dialing-in your suddenly obsolete SI. Today, if you can find one of the 30 made, expect to pay dearly. The last one anyone can remember on the market was offered at $25,000, and was snapped up quickly.
Given that, a 1998 street-going replica Replica for under 8 grand seems like a pretty good deal. David Edwards
