Kawasaki Z1000 Bol D'or 1975

The French were the first to set out after the records at motorcycling's Le Mans 24 Hours, the Bol d'Or. They developed the Japauto 1000, which was a very successful adaptation of the Honda 750 four-cylinder production model.

The Italians entered the field with the Guzzi and Laverda two-cylinder models. The Italian motorcycles were in the front starting positions, but they never finished. Thus the first years of the Coupe d'Endurance were dominated by the French and Honda.

Then Kawasaki built and put on the market its two-shaft four-cylinder 900, a big racing motorcycle with a production-model chassis. It was clear to many private adapters of motorcycles that the Kawasaki could be a winner. And the Bol d'Or was the only big race in the world in which a well-organized team of amateurs could have a ope of winning.

The Honda Japauto 1000 won the 1972 and 1973 editions of the Bol d'Or, and the French thought that they would win again without great difficulty. At the starting line of the 1974 edition, Luc Rigal's official BMW and some sixteen more or less competitive Kawasaki 900s, none of which could be underrated, waited to take off. Rigal's BMW 900 took the lead, but Leon and Du Hamel's official Kawasaki overtook it in short order. Right behind was another Kawasaki, this one private, belonging to the French

Godier-Genoud team. Kawasaki had two official and one semiofficial motorcycle in the race. The official ones were those ridden by the Franco-Canadian team of Leon and Du Hamel and by the Anglo-French pair Tait and Balde. The semiofficial Kawasaki was raced by Coulon and Sousson. The motorcycle that won the race was the Kawasaki raced by Godier and Genoud. They rode a fine race with pit stops only for brakes, aside from transmission chain adjustments and the normal refueling stops, which took no more than ten seconds.

The 1975 Kawasaki 1000 that Godier and Genoud raced had a completely redesigned chassis that was built with totally new techniques. With the aid of a computer from Amiens University, the Frenchmen built the chassis out of a particularly light and tough material known as 25 CD 4S, which was recommended to them by Pierre Doncque. This adviser to the French team also designed a new rear cantilever suspension with a kind of openwork structure that worked like a swinging fork, acting on a single Koni shock absorber mounted below the hub of the fork.

This redesigned Kawasaki weighed about 400 pounds, some 100 pounds less than the normal production model. Its horsepower was 105, but that did not diminish the vehicle's mechanical reliability.
Despite all this attention, the Kawasaki lost out to the fast and maneu-verable official Ducati at the Barcelona Montjuich 24 Hours. The Ducati was raced by Canellas and Grau, who had an advantage on that twisting and climbing course.

The Kawasaki's superiority had been challenged by a less finely tuned and less powerful motorcycle. The Ducati won again at the Mugello 1,000 Kilometers, while Godier and Genoud only managed a fourth place.
At the Belgian Liege 24 Hours, a fast race run under a torrential rain, the Kawasaki had bad luck. Godier fell and the motorcycle was withdrawn from the race.
But the time came for the Kawasaki, at the thirty-ninth edition of the Bol d'Or. Alain Genoud and Georges Godier dominated the race, coming in ahead of the Kawasaki raced by Estrosi and Husson as well as the one raced by Du Hamel and Balde.

The green four-cylinder sponsored by Sidemm, the French Kawasaki dealer, also won the last race of 1975, the Thruxton 600 Miles. Luc and Vial came in first, and Godier and Genoud came in third.

Motorcycle: Kawasaki 1000 Bol d'Or Manufacturer: Kawasaki Industries Ltd., Tokyo
Type: Coupe d'Endurance Year: 1975
Engine: Kawasaki four-cylinder, tour-stroke, with two-shaft overhead chain distribution. Displacement 998.1 cc.
Cooling: Air
Transmission: Five-speed block
Power: 105 h.p. at 8,500 r.p.m.
Maximum speed: Over 1SS m.p.h.
Chassis: Double cradle, below and side, tubular. Front, telescopic suspension; rear, monocross (cantilever) with openwork fork and single vertical shock absorber
Brakes: Front, hydraulic double disk; rear, hydraulic disk