Kawasaki Heavy Industries Consumer Products and Machinery Company

"Binter" redirects here. For the Spanish airline, see Binter Canarias.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries Consumer Products and Machinery Company is the Consumer Products and Machinery production division of Kawasaki Heavy Industries. It produces Motorcycles, ATVs, Utility vehicles, Jet Ski personal watercrafts, General-purpose gasoline engines.

Motorcycles

Kawasaki's Aircraft Company began the development of a motorcycle engine in 1949. The development was completed in 1952 and mass production started in 1953. The engine was an air-cooled, 148cc, OHV, 4-stroke single cylinder with a maximum power of 4PS (3.9hp/2.9kW) at 4,000 rpm.

In 1954 the first compete Kawasaki Motorcycle was produced under the name of Meihatsu, a subsidiary of Kawasaki Aircraft.

In 1960 Kawasaki completed construction of a factory dedicated exclusively to motorcycle production and bought Meguro Motorcycles.

Kawasaki has since then become one of the world's major motorcycle manufacturers

All-Terrain Vehicles and utility vehicles

Kawasaki's first ATV was the three-wheeled KLT200, which debuted in 1981. Its first four-wheel ATV, the Bayou 185, was introduced in 1985 and in 1989 its first model with four-wheel-drive, the Bayou 300 4x4. Today, Kawasaki’s ATV line-up includes a wide range of recreational and utility ATVs.

Kawasaki's MULE (Multi-Use Light Equipment) utility vehicle combines an ATV with a pick-up truck, The first MULE was produced in 1988

Watercrafts

In 1973, Kawasaki introduced a limited production of stand-up models as designed by the recognized inventor of jet skis, Clayton Jacobsen II. In 1976, Kawasaki then began mass production of the JS400-A. JS400s came with 400 cc two-stroke engines and hulls based upon the previous limited release models. It became the harbinger of the success Jet-Skis would see in the market up through the 1990s. In 1986 Kawasaki broadened the world of Jet Skis by introducing a two person model with lean-in "sport" style handling and a 650cc engine, dubbed the X-2. Then in 1989, they introduced their first two passenger "sit-down" model, the Tandem Sport (TS) with a step-through seating area. In 2003, Kawasaki celebrated the Jet Ski brand by releasing a special 30th anniversary edition of its current stand-up model, the SX-R, which has seen a revival of interest in stand-up jetskiing. The X-2 has also been updated, based on the SX-R platform and re-released in Japan. Kawasaki continues to produce three models of sit-downs, including many four-stroke models. The four stroke engines have come on since the late 1990s; with the help of superchargers and the like the engines can output up to 250 horsepower as seen in the Kawasaki ultra 250x.