Can You Picture A Kawasaki Z400 RS On The Horizon?

Smaller and smaller for the RS line of Kawasaki?

By: Earl Davidson

Nov 7, 2021 at 4:30pm ET

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After the launch of the middleweight Kawasaki Z650 RS, it was only fitting that reliable news outlets like Young Machine would speculate and come up with some hearsay about a new Z400 RS.

It makes sense that Kawasaki would make retro-modern racers even more accessible, seeing as there is genuine interest in the classics. Kawasaki might not have known it in the past, but it started its “Retrovolution” already with the Z900 RS, then the bike got smaller with the Z650 RS, and now it seems like Team Green is cooking up something even smaller for you to swing a leg over.

Of course, all of this information churned from the rumor mill, but the folks over at Young Machine have a great track record of some of the juiciest insider info in Japan. Apparently, they’ve featured a photo on the latest issue of their magazine, and if you squint a little, you might be able to make out the “400” on the pixelated text.

What do you think?

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It gets even juicier as you flip through the issue. The table of contents lists a “Z400 RS” as a part of the table of contents. Finally, check the last photo out, it’s a heavily pixelated photo of what could be the 400cc retro naked bike. I mean, you can tell, right? It seems like they took the photo from the cover, and blurred out the image so you can’t see the action happening underneath. Just use your imagination a little to superimpose the cover onto the pixelation. Heck, Young Machine even blurred out the badging.

With all that being said, it’s quite easy to guess the specifications of the Z400 RS at this point in time. Seeing as Kawasaki are very faithful to its 180-degree parallel twins, it won’t be a shocker to see the 399cc twin from the Z400 and Ninja 400 in the RS model. As such, we can expect a figure of somewhere in the 45 horsepower range, which is plenty enough for you to have some fun with. If you still find that a bit lacking, then the 650cc equivalent should fit nicely. On top of that, the wait should be much shorter, as the magazine sort of hints at a launch date happening next year in 2022, or even close to 2023.