Manufactured in the early 1980s by the Deutschland division of Suzuki, the Katana series of bikes was designed by a third-party design team. The design team consisted of the firm Target Design from South Bavaria along with Hans Muth, Jan Fellstrom, and Hans-Georg Kasten. Till date, Hans Muth is a professional custom motorcycle designer, noted in the industry for creating special designs for many models of bikes such as the BMW R90S, R100, R35, and R65, besides various others. The name “Katana” is derived from the famous Japanese samurai sword.
The Katana design was quite ahead of its time with a forward nose and a virtual merging of the fuel tank with the seat. The design enhanced the aerodynamics of the bike and increased stability. The preliminary design had a high performance 650cc European Design (ED-1) engine as its power-plant. In 1999, the Suzuki Katana 600 was introduced that boosts a 599cc, four-stroke, four-cylinder inline engine. There are four valves per cylinder and the engine churns out 86 horsepower at 1100 rpm. The bike is equipped with six-speed transmission and a chain final drive. The fuel tank has a capacity of 5.3 gallons.
The Katana series was later released as a sports-touring range of motorcycles in North America. The latest variants of the bike include a 750cc version engine, an 1100cc engine, and the most recent 1000cc engine adhering to current emission standards. The different variants were solely introduced as racing models with pop-up headlights and smoother lines on a mono-shock rear suspension. |
