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You are right, they knocked the R-9 out of the park. That is how to do Modern Retro!

The single biggest attraction of a 6 cylinder engine is that they are smooth in every way, being self-balancing for primary and secondary shaking forces, and having 50 percent more propulsive smoothness than a Four (lack of vibration from power-pulsing). That is a big positive for large touring bikes like the Gold Wing and K-series BMW. But these bikes are huge -700 to 800lb of weight, not to mention their bulk- just to achieve that one feature. Ok, the sound too. Everything else a 3 or 4 cylinder engine works just as well.
The German made Horex is a case in point of a high end 6 cylinder naked bike that hasn't sold well.
Kawasaki have been very clear recently on where they are going with their high performance - 4 cylinders and forced induction- ie. super charging and not more cylinders. The new R1 and zx10 are well over 200 h.p. so a 6 cylinder can't offer more than that. Then add their complexity, cost of maintainance and initial high cost- because it wouldn't appeal to the majority- it will be like the Suzuki Stratoshere of a few years ago, a nice idea but the numbers are of sales are not there.
No japanese manufacturer could pull this off as they are not considered as a premium brand .Only BMW could pull this off because of their position in the market place.- and they have the engine already.

Isn't that why they abandoned the Kz1300 in the first place? As a naked sport bike it didn't appeal to the masses and cost a lot so it didn't sell very well.

The modern sportbikes are ridiculous for HP. Amazing that they get so much out of such a small engine and make it very reliable besides. My 12R was nuts when it had the stock 168 HP at the wheel. After the engine was built by carpenter it was making 225 on motor alone with another 75 on NOS. Now, the new bikes have almost that many HP right out of the factory door.

I don't think Kawasaki ever cared how many 1300's they sold. It was test bed for many concepts that needed evaluation. In the mid 70's the company was in the middle of some internal strife over the direction of their new designs. On one hand you had the notion that compact air cooled six cylinders would be common place. The GPZ900R was originally intended to have a 6 cylinder in it. On the other side there was a faction that believed the future was in simplicity of design and the whole idea of a 6 cylinder bike was ridiculous.

History proved the simplicity side right, but lucky for us they built the big 6. Kawasaki got a lot out of the project though, first production bike they put water cooling on, they vetted their shaft drive system on high HP engine, and they stumbled into the American Touring market with the Voyager which would lead the Concours and the ZX-14.

BMW has a 6 pot engine, but to put it on a sport bike would be a big gamble. It would have to sell on its name plate alone because any well set up 1000cc sport bike would burry it in every single performance category. When the 1300 came out it only had the CBX to contend with. Honda's mistake in building the CBX was much worse for them technically and financially than the mistake Kawasaki made building the 1300. But again lucky for us they built that machine too...

It's not a BMW or a Kawasaki and the engine is twice the size of the KZ 1300 - and only for the super wealthy.

www.motorcycledaily.com/2016/10/fgr-mida...er-rich-with-videos/

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Midalu V6 is based on the 2.5 litre Ford Mondeo V6?
90 degrees is quite a wide angle V for a bike engine but they seem to have packaged it well & it even looks good; sometimes bulky engines in bikes are hard to package & the bike ends up looking awkward. Still reckon Horex have the better strategy with their more compact narrow-angle V6, the technology of which was licensed from Volkwagen & their VR6.
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