It's Not Easy - How Kawasaki owned their 'unlucky' colour

Words by Caster & Camber

Certain manufacturers you have learned to associate with certain colours. Ferrari is red, Mercedes is Silver and Kawasaki are green. The unavoidable rules nature we’re afraid… but have you ever though why? What reasons led to that particular hue being so synonymous with a brand? Well, here’s how Kawasaki turned green.

To do that, we have to go back to 1969.

It’s the Daytona 200. One of the most important races on the racing calendar and Kawasaki have turned up strong. A gaggle of 5 bikes turned up - 250cc A1RA’s and 350cc A7RA factory racers. But they were all painted the unspeakable colour!

So the stories goes, green has always been a cursed colour somewhat in the racing world. Too much of it and you attract all the bad that’s going around. Don’t know about that, we’re from the home of “British Racing Green” and we’ve done pretty well out of it.

Anyway, back to the bikes. The 1969 Daytona 200 was going to be one of the first proper motorcycle endurance races that would be shown live on TV. If Kawasaki had learnt anything from F1 or NASCAR, it was that the bright and exciting colours drew your attention on screen. So, to contrast again that monotones of the Daytona Speedway, the bikes were painted Kawasaki Racing Green.

Image: Kawasaki

The photo you see is a bit faded and also, different photographic films would change saturations and hues so it doesn’t look like the vibrant venom green it was.

So the story goes, the head of national sales and the head of national marketing in the US had come up with the plan to get the bikes more recognisable in the marketplace, they needed a bold statement. So, they approached Akashi designer Chris Kurishima and chopper king Rolly “Molly” Sanders (who also designed Kenny Roberts now famous Yellow and Black livery) to come up with a look and a colour for the future of the Japanese bikes.

The colour, was allegedly stolen from an AMC Javelin that Molly had painted beforehand but it fit just right on the bike.

Kawasaki loved it.

The green worked perfectly, it was so bold and loud that you couldn’t help but noticed it. From that point on, all of the bikes would be in that signature shade of Green.