ENGLISH VERSION - ISSUE 3 - JAN 2015

THE CLUB KATANA FRANCE MAGAZINE

1980-2015

The Katanacomes back !

Foreword

Alexandre

Contents- Page 3 : Club meetings- Page 4 : ED-1 35th Anniversary- Page 7 : Target 750 Sport- Page 10 : German 1981 magazine ad- Page 11 : The 2015 Turbo Katana?- Page 13 : The EuroKat VI Report- Page 17 : The Newstand- Page 18 : Shopping - The TV Kat- Page 20 : French leaflet for the GS650GX

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Happy New Year !2015 - it's been 35 years since target DESIGN unveiled ED-1 to the world!It will be a most interesting year for us Katfans, as this year will see the rebirth of the target MV Agusta, that of the Gamma... and that of the Katana!

This year, no official "international" meeting is planned - EK7 will take place next year, as well as the Australian 35th Anniversary event. A good excuse to invite the Missus to see Kangaroos and crocodiles!

29-31May:49thKatanaTreffen !

19-21 June - Katmeet in Belgium

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Rob from Katanacentral is organising a Summer Kat weekend at the Bikers Loft Hotel in Brugges!There will be Live music on Friday (the Lucky Dados, Rockabilly from Madrid) and lots of Belgian beer!Plans for Saturday include a spin around Ypres, a visit to the Oldtimer Museum and/or Trappist Abbey brewery...Sounds great, doesn't it ? You can sign up on !KOC UK's forum

The traditional German KOC meeting is nearing its 50th edition!!! If you wonder what will EK50 look like, go to Holm in May!

As you might expect, you will find good beer, good music and good company! You can visit the Facebook page and register there by clicking here.

Club meetings

NewsfromJapan

I n D e c e m b e r, K O C J P celebrated the end of the year with Maso Tani (77 years old this year) and had a great party!I n O c t o b e r , t h e c l u b organised a big event in H a m a m a t s u - 5 0 b i k e s gathered with 70 persons, including Yokouchi-San and Tani-San. All the bikes went on the circuit for a riding course!

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Memorabilia

35th Anniversary

In 1980, target DESIGN - J. Fellstrom, H.G. Kasten, H.A. Muth - wowed the world introducing the "European Design 1" study for the coming GS650.

This was to be a seminal move - the first bike to receive a wedge shape, which was already popular on cars of the era (think Countach for example) but yet unseen in the motorcycle world. ED-1 was the first bike to feature sculpted tank and seats to ergonomically integrate the rider.

The two-tone seat gave the impression of a red body cover and featured integrated handles - never seen in production certainly because of difficult production process.

The raised instruments evolved into ED-2 prototype's minimalist pod, while the rotary fuel tap control became a starter knob on production ED-2s.

Memorabilia

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On both picture you can see well how the lines from the front fender, instruments, tank and seat all follow the arms and upper leg direction and point skywards - so wedgy !

(continued)

Note the prototype rear light - an innovation that would find its way in the market during the 90's!

35th Anniversary

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35th Anniversary

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Memorabilia

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Unveiling of ED-1 to Suzuki executives, and production guide drawing showing seat attachment and lock, rear light bulb positioning, fuel cap and tap. Many thanks to Hans-Georg Kasten for the pictures!

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Nowforsale!

Text from issue 51 of Practical Sportsbikes :

target DESIGN is recreating its 1980 MV Agusta design study prototype using modern computer design technology. The firm plans a limited run of replicas of the radical bike.The Target 750 Sport was c r e a t e d f o r a d e s i g n c o m p e t i t i o n i n G e r m a n magazine Motorrad in 1980, and is sometimes wrongly credited as the basis for the styl ing of the GSX1100S Katana, also penned by the German design house.It was in fact derived from the Katana s ty l ing sketches already well under way by that

point, as Target's Hans-Georg K a s t e n t o l d P r a c t i c a l Sportsbikes : "The MV was designed by Hans Muth for Motorrad as a showpiece for their yearly design innovations magazine. It was designed by him as an individual rather than target DESIGN as a whole, but he actually designed it after we had completed the 550/650 Katanas, and we had already produced a full-scale design model of the 1100, too, but hadn't shown it publicly yet."The 750 Sport Target will use the MV engine and shaft drive as per the original. For more details on the limited run, see motorrad-fuchs.com, who are handling sales of the bikes.

Target 750 SportTailor-made

Target 750 Sport

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Tailor-made

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Tailor-made

Target 750 Sport (continued)

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Breaking News

The 2015 Turbo Katana ?

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The magazine that broke the news is titled Young Machine. Their track record isn’t totally accurate though they generally get the at least parts of the story right. For example, they were one of the first to indicate Honda were working on a bike to sit between the CBR250R and CBR600RR – claiming it was a CBR400R. They were out by about 100cc, but nevertheless they general idea was right. The image of the Recursion they’ve also printed is probably way off as it looks more concept than the original concept did.

T h i s i s a n a r t i c l e f r o m therideadvice.com website :

News has broken today from Japan that Suzuki may be on it’s way to putting into production the Suzuki Recursion, a concept bike first shown at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show and featured a 588cc, parallel-twin, turbocharged engine. But is it too good to be true seeing as this is Suzuki we’re talking about? A company that hasn’t updated most of it’s lineup in 10 years and who we’ve been critical of as recently as last month?

If Suzuki were ever to get itself back in the game, this would be the motorcycle to do it. While the Ninja H2R and H2 are impressive on paper, very few riders will swing a leg over them and they’re hardly motorcycles for the ‘Real World™‘. The Suzuki Recursion is small in stature (the aluminum frame goes over the engine instead of beside it, keeping it narrow), weighs only 174kg dry (not bad with a turbo bolted on) and will supposedly have improved emissions and fuel economy over a similarly sized 600cc bike by as much as 50 per cent.

Obviously it’s the power and torque figures that are the most attractive proposition. Leaked internal documents of the concept bike indicated 100hp@ 8,000RPM, compared to the GSX-R 600 which makes 124hp at a much higher 13,500rpm. But it’s the supposed torque figure that is really exciting – 73ft-lb at only 4,500rpm. The GSX-R600 only has 51.3ft-lb@11500rpm. And while we’re comparing the performance figures to the GSX-R600, don’t think that Suzuki Recursion aims to replace or even compete in the same category at the supersport machine – we’re only comparing like displacement for like displacement. The Suzuki Recursion is more of an SV-650 than a supersport – at least the concept was.

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If Suzuki were to release the Recursion, 2015 would be the time to do it. With a return to MotoGP, Suzuki is obviously deciding now is the time to get their name back out t he re as a manu fac tu re r o f h i gh performance machines.

If the Suzuki Recursion does make it to market, this is a motorcycle that will the practical alternative to the Ninja H2 and one that we think could end up being wildly popular.

Breaking News

The 2015 Turbo Katana ?(continued)

Flags : VectorTemplates.com

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EuroKat VI Report

In August, KOC UK welcomed the Katfans from all over the world to EuroKat 6 in South Wales.

This time, there was a real French contingent! One group coming from Bordeaux (JJ, Laurent and Alexandre), stopped in Nantes where Eric and Nathalie gave them shelter! They were joined at the Ferry boat by Damien, Laurent's nephew. The other group came from le Mans and Toulon, - the famous Samurai brothers, Philippe and David, with wives and kids!

A great time was had by all : great company, great food, great music, great beer (and Katana oil), and the winner of the lottery got a Pop-up Kat to bring back home!

Images are worth a thousand words, so here are the pictures from and KOC UK's CKF'sFacebook pages. THANK YOU everybody!!!

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EuroKat VI Report (continued)

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EuroKat VI Report (continued)

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EuroKat VI Report (continued)

In the Press

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The newsstand

There is an excellent web article if you read Italian in - I guess a Motociclismo d'Epocaprinted version will be released in the magazine soon!

The August issue of Practical Sportsbikeswas spot-on for EK6 - there was a great article about the Katana, featuring Nicky Dodd - unsurprisingly, his bike won the best original award in Tonna !

In France, the Katfans are impatiently waiting for the release of a Katana

sculpture edited in the series Joe Bar teamwhich is due this year!

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TOMICA LIMITED VINTAGE NEO

Shopping

"Concrete Western" (or "Seibu Keisatsu - Western Police) is a Police series aired on TV Asahi from 1979 to 1985.

As you might remember from Katmag #1, Suzuki Corp. used to supply bikes to TV productions as an marketing tool.

In Part II of the series, Hiroshi Tachi started riding a GS650G Katana, replaced a few episodes later by a mean black GSX1100S that became a cult symbol in Japan.

The series featured a lot of explosive action, and the heroes from the Western Police Station d r o v e f u t u r i s t i c c a r s w i t h computers, infra-red vision, radars, weapons and smoke generators.

While Nissan provided those modified Fairlady and Skyline, Suzuki supplied Kats to the heroes - but also to the bad guys ! A lot of black GS650Gs were used... and smashed during production!

The series was revived in 2004 for a Special program and is still very popular in Japan. A lot of toys are regularly released, and this year the most impressive one is this 1:6th scale katana.

You might remember that last year HPI released a 1:6th GSX1100SL, and the finish on version Tomica'sis very similar - superb work!

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The TV Kat

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Shopping

After HPI Racing gave up production of its assembled scale models last year, this is the only big scale Katana model available nowadays.

Note the specific tail, turn lamps, front brakes, seat and numberplate that makes this Kat a real TV hero!

Price is 128,000 yen in Japan excluding taxes, which is around 1,000 euros - limiting the appeal of this fantastic model to hardcore fans of the TV program, alas!

The TV Kat (continued)

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