1979 KAWASAKI KZ 1000 LTD (US Spec)

Strange how the tables of fortune can turn. How thin the line is between good and evil. Such is the case with the Icon Kawizuki. Starting life as a proud '79 Kawasaki KZ1000 police bike it patrolled the streets of Portland with a self righteous air. Until one seemingly small infraction, just a bit of oil blow-by, would allow the judicious Kawi to fall into the clutches of Icon. Originally we were going to chop it in our Slabtown based shop, but certain codes of the Geneva convention prevented such actions. So we sent it off to a secret Icon garage in Lithuania. It was there that this bike would learn its true fate. For all those dollars Icon staff had spent on impound fees, the forced trips across state lines to answer for unjust charges, for the humiliation of unwarranted reckless tickets - the price of retribution would be high.

And so the interrogation began. Without even asking a single question the stock swingarm was brutally removed with a torch. It's smoldering remains sent back to the factory as notification of the horrors that would ensue unless our demands were met. Our list was long and their reply insufficient, so the mechanical brutality was intensified. Cylinders were bored to very limit of their capacity. The stock front end, pathetic and weak, was subjected to lengthy verbal humiliation before being unceremoniously yarded. Even the wiring harness would be slashed and cut into a grotesque mockery of it's formerly handsome self.

In time the Kawazuki would accept what it had become - a monster. Powered by Kawasaki but suspended by Suzuki it found itself unfit for life within normal society. It would be insatiably drawn towards the dark city streets and deserted parking lots it once despised. A fringe dwelling aircooled beast who's only solace would be amongst it's former enemies. Indeed the hand of fate is fickle.