25 Years Ago October, 1981
25 YEARS AGO OCTOBER, 1981
performance-minded readers had their hopes boosted by the CX500 Turbo shown on the cover, with a detailed technical report and first ride aboard Honda's technically advanced, pre-production, fuelinjected Twin within. Honda applied for 250 patents in the process of building the world's first massproduced turbo bike. While other manufacturers soon followed with boosted machines of their own, the fad eventually fizzled, yet traces of technology the CX introduced have helped shape today's motorcycles.
• "Sometimes bigger is just.... bigger," read the title of the Kawasaki KZ1 300 road test. The touringequipped inline-Six was very large for its time-"a 1300 being as big a machine as a man can haul around," we proclaimed. While the 21 st-century cyclist hasn't grown in physical stature, our idea of what constitutes "big" certainly has. It's only fitting that Kawasaki remains at the forefront with bikes such as the ZX-14 and Vulcan 2000. • Team Green made more news in the Race Watch section with a report on the pavement-racing progress of 20year-old prodigy Wayne Rainey. Having hooked up with Kawi to ride a KX250-based short-tracker, the kid who would become three-time 500cc World Champion had just begun the dirt-to-road transition. Tutelage from hired-by-Kawasaki roadracing instructor Keith Code led ` to a couple of club race wins and victory in his AMA national debut V on a KR250 in the Novice event at Loudon. It was suggested that Kawasaki may have found the next Eddie Lawson. -Don Canet
