The History of the Kawasaki VN-series
The first of the Kawasaki VN series, the 750cc Vulcan, was introduced in 1985. This marked a radical departure fro Kawasaki, ho until that time had used existing roadster engines in their successful range of cruiser style motorcycles.The Kawasaki Vulcan has an all new, liquid-cooled V-twin power plant and as joined two years later by the VN1500, at that time, the largest capacity road motorcycle ever produced. The Kawasaki Vulcan 750 was well received, albeit troubled by engine problems throughout its life, and was over shadowed by the larger sibling, so much that the smaller of the two slipped off the sales list by the turn of the next decade. The VN1500 soldiered on and grew into the VN1600, a motorcycle still available today in most countries, again joined in the line up in 1993 by the revised VN750. Three years later, and this motorcycle in turn grew in bore size by 3.1mm to become the Kawasaki VN800.
In 2006 the most recent incarnation of the VN-series occurred with the introduction of the Kawasaki Vulcan 900 VN900, a motorcycle that finally shook off the vibey engine stigma as Kawasaki increased the capacity by lengthening the stroke, instead of using the ever-larger diameter piston method, the latter being a cheaper way of gaining extra cc's but eventually creating a potentially out of balance engine.
This final development to date made for a torquey engine that fitted in neatly with the taut chassis, topped off with the hassle free rubber drive belt and all round ease of use. The Kawasaki Vulcan 900 comes in two basic formats, the Custom and the Classic, the latter shares most of the chassis architecture of the Custom, and while being a tad heavier, is still a great motorcycle, if the west-coat styling is your thing.
