Kawasaki Ninja R2 in the works

Around a week ago, we had reported that Kawasaki would be bringing in more supercharged motorcycles. There was also information regarding these motorcycles being middleweight motorcycles. Here are some details of one of their future motorcycles, the Ninja R2.

The R2 is expected to look similar to the original H2 but also from Kawasaki’s future styling direction, which was hinted at, last year, by leaked images of the next-generation Ninja 300. The slanted headlights with jutting spoilers underneath them will be part of Kawasaki’s future design language.

Kawasaki trademarks and rumours suggest the new bike will be called ‘Ninja R2’. While the capacity of the engine has not been officially revealed, it’s expected to be a supercharged motorcycle with a capacity of just above 800cc, and could provide an alternative to litre-class motorcycles. Japanese sources say Kawasaki are close to settling on an engine capacity of slightly over 800cc for this model, a smaller capacity version could follow.

At last year’s EICMA show in Milan, Kawasaki president Kenji Tomida revealed these new models will be designed in-house using a new supercharged engine, but this time, it could be a smaller capacity, rumours claim it to be around 600cc. Kawasaki says it shows the company's ability to make their technology 'scalable' for different applications, and hints at even more variants in the future. The sketches reveal the retro-styled bikes that are seen to be using the latest chassis and supercharger.

The motorcycle could hit the market sometime early in 2017.