This unique 1984 Kawasaki Ninja 900-A1 is a pre-production machine built in Japan, which normally would have been crushed, as it was not tested or certified for sale. How it survived is a bit of a mystery, but what’s known is how it came to be discovered in Kawasaki’s dusty SoCal “loan pool” warehouse. This immaculate pre-production motorcycle shows a mere 5.8 push miles on the odometer, as the bike has never been ridden. It has been exhibited widely as the premier example of the first-year Kawasaki Ninja, including at the Guggenheim’s 1998 exhibit “The Art of the Motorcycle,” as well as at the traveling versions of the exhibit in Bilbao, Spain, and five additional venues; it’s been around the world, but only as a pristine display for the past 39 years. This Ninja comes with full documentation of its history, including the original brochures and exhibit catalogs, plus miscellaneous spare parts that came with the bike as presented. This 1984 Kawasaki Ninja GPZ900-A1 was discovered by John Hoover, Director of Product Management at Kawasaki USA. A lifelong “motorcycle nut,” according to his wife Helen, John had found his dream job at Kawasaki, working first as a district sales manager in Kansas City; his first dealer meeting was in Hawaii in the spring of 1984, where the new GPZ900 Ninja was introduced. After four years he was offered a position in California as a marketing executive, where he advised on motorcycle designs and colors and founded the Kawasaki drag racing team. Another part of his job was overseeing the “loan pool”—motorcycles lent out to journalists for testing. One of his hobbies was building motorcycles in his spare time, and in 1992 he had the idea to modify a 900 Ninja as a canyon carver; he searched the loan pool list for a suitable used bike and discovered an original 1984 900 Ninja that had zero miles, had never been serviced by a dealer and was built in Japan, not Lincoln, Nebraska, like the other GPZ900s. Not only that, the Ninja had a pre-production VIN— the kind of bike that is legally required to be crushed, as it has not passed type approval. Of course, John offered to buy the bike from Kawasaki, but the factory could not find any record of how it got to LA; possibly, it was built for the 1984 dealer launch. John recognized the value of the Ninja laying in its zero-mile pristine condition, so he carefully stored it, but did manage to secure a title via a friend with a dealership—a piece of legal chicanery perhaps best forgotten. When the curators for the Guggenheim’s “The Art of the Motorcycle” exhibit approached Kawasaki in 1997, looking for a perfect example of this landmark model, the company replied, “we just sold the bike you want to John Hoover.” Thus, this 1984 Kawasaki Ninja GPZ900-A1 traveled to the Guggenheim exhibits in New York City, Orlando, Memphis, Chicago, Las Vegas and Bilbao, Spain. It remains in remarkable condition as not only the most intriguing and finest example of a first-year Ninja on the planet, but one with a remarkable back story. S111 1984 KAWASAKI NINJA 900-A1 PRE-PRODUCTION MODEL
