KAWASAKI WILL be whipping the covers off a new naked Z400 model later this year when it unveils its 2019 model range.
It’s not a huge leap of logic to see that it’s coming. Kawasaki already has a Z250 and Ninja 250, a Z650 and Ninja 650, a Z1000 and Ninja 1000 (well, that’s what the Z1000SX is called in some markets, anyway). And last autumn the firm announced that in 2019 it would also have a Z125 and Ninja 125.
When it launched the new Ninja 400 last year, Kawasaki ditched both its direct predecessor – the Ninja 300 twin – and the naked Z300 that was spun off from that bike. So where’s the Z400?
The answer is “in Kawasaki’s 2019 model range.”
But this is more than just speculation and deduction. Kawasaki has betrayed its plans by filing new emissions documents with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) that confirm the Z400’s existence. The documents show that the firm will have two 400cc bikes sharing the same engine. One is listed as the Ninja 400, the other as the ‘ER400DK’.
In Kawasaki-speak, ‘ER’ inevitably means ‘naked bike’ – the faired Ninja 400 is an ‘EX’ model – and the ‘K’ is simply a reference to 2019 model year. The last version of the Z300 to be offered in the UK was the 2016 version and its internal code was ‘ER300BG’.
Spec-wise, the new Z400 will be identical to the Ninja 400 when it comes to the engine and chassis. So we can look forward to around 45hp from the 399cc twin, and a weight of about 168kg. Given that the faired Ninja costs £5,249, something in the region of £4,999 would be about right for the naked version.
