Is this the shape of bikes to come? Kawasaki’s new ZZR-X concept bike claims to be the ultimate super-sports touring machine. Its advanced technology allows it to change shape to suit a sports bike or a high speed-mile eater role, at the press of a button.
The bike has three main modes. Firstly it’s a high speed touring machine, with fitted, aerodynamic panniers, a high screen and raised handlebars. Secondly there is the more relaxed touring mode, with ‘extendable flaps’ (ooh err), to redirect air round the rider. Also a backrest is raised from the seat pod to accommodate a pillion and to give them that little bit more comfort for those long hours asleep on the road. Thirdly there is a sports bike mode. Here the panniers are taken away, the screen and bars lowered and the backrest folded down to give it an aggressive sports bike feel.
Features, that aid the aggressive futuristic look include a single sided, hub centred steered, front end and a single sided, shaft drive rear. Bakes, front and rear, are the rim mounted kind and are claimed to be ‘cone-shaped’ which will improve cooling for when the roads get fast and twisty. Oddly, the exhaust silencer is mounted within the fairing with the gasses exiting from the lower part of each side of the fairing. There’s even some storage space, where the petrol tank should be, for the Judge’s hand cannon. It’s likely to have a litre-plus lump from the new ZX-10R or even more likely the ZZ-R1200, which would power it to a good 170mph. By the looks of things the aerodynamics are clean and given the right engine this bike may be Kawasaki’s attempt at a 200mph breaker, in unrestricted form of course.
Who would want one? Kawasaki has probably aimed this bike at the middle to late age professionals with a healthy credit rating, who want a little bit of everything for their pennies, and Judge Dredd. The looks of the bike are unconventional to say the least, and the hub centre front end has been tried a few times before with no real success. In an ideal world there are a lot of benefits to this idea due to its rigidity, but will we buy it? The bike will probably have a five digit price tag due to the cost of manufacture of all the hub centred this and extending flaps that. The features of this bike are never ending, you have to ask yourself if Kawasaki is just showing off, or will they really release a bike with two large flaps on either
http://www.superbikemagazine.co.uk/news.htm
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... if all the shape shifting is done via hydraulics, it would be quite an ego bashing for the latest yuppie in his crop top roof folding BMW at the lights 
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