Manufactured in the early 1980s by the Deutschland division of Suzuki, the Katana series of bikes were designed by a third party design team. The design team consisted of firm Target Design from South Bavaria along with Hans Muth, Jan Fellstrom, and Hans-Georg Kasten. Hans Muth is till date a professional custom motorcycle designer in the industry having created special designs for many bikes such as the BMW R90S, R100, R35 and R65 models besides various other models.
The Katana series was the first motorcycle to achieve the record of being the fastest mass-production motorcycle in the world. The basic design had a high performance 650 cc European Design (ED-1) engine, as its power-plant. The design had seen the implementation of the petrol filler rerouted as an offset from the fuel tank’s center for continuous seam. This philosophy allowed re-structuring numerous sections of the bikes facets, leading to a reduction in manufacturing costs, lesser over all weight, and therefore lesser number of components. The motorcycle design also features advanced aerodynamics specially engineered to provide stability at high speeds.
The Katana series was later released as a sports-touring range of motorcycles in North America. The latest variants of the bike include a 750 cc version engine, an 1100 cc engine, and a latest 1000 cc engine adhering to current emission standards. The different variants were solely introduced as racing models with pop-up headlight and smoother lines on a mono-shock rear suspension. |
