Why restore as standard when you can do this?

Spotted this delicious Z1000 on bubblevisor’s site, the other day. It is living proof that metallic brown paint is the new black. As is the case with some of these blog sites, there’s very little or no information about the bike, just a pic. This pic, in fact.

I’m guessing by the limestone stonework in the background (and the stair-rod rain) that this is taken somewhere deep in the Pennines – I’d hate to get the Yorkshire/Lancashire thing wrong, so I’ll just stick to my Pennine assumption. Stone mullioned windows could belong to either side.

Never mind the architecture and stonemasonry, what about the bike? The obvious bits? A Spondon double-hollow swingarm and rear sets, 17in Dymag wheels, Lockheed calipers and 320mm floating rotors. Are those USD forks a Kawasaki item with newly machined bottoms to accept the radial calipers?

A few years back Spondon Engineering built a batch of Z1000 frames that accepted the standard tank, side panels and seat. Maybe this is one of those – we’ve tried zooming in but it’s not high res’ enough to allow us to inspect the welds. Glad to see he’s fitted some wets…

Do you own this bike or know someone who knows someone who owns it? We’d love to hear from you…

By mark forsyth