Photo: Gannet Design
If you ever wondered how a 200+ hp café racer would look like, we’ve got some good news for you. Gannet Design’s Ulfert Janssen has just sent us his latest rendering of the Kawasaki Ninja H2-based naked machine and it looks… well, extreme!
We totally expected this bike to look completely evil, as the “donor” was anything but a tamed, easy to overlook machine. As Ulfert himself tells us, he wanted to “de-batmanize” the Ninja H2, and add more fluid volumes to it. Still he also wanted to retain a hefty dose of extreme engineering showing off, and looking closely at this rendering, the managed to have things exactly the way he wanted.
Some might argue that the café-racerized machine doesn’t retain enough of the original bike design, and is thus too far a stretch from the initial concept. On the other hand, diehard café racer fans will definitely acclaim Ulfert’s way of “hiding” the edgy H2 bike under the retro guise. We believe this is only a matter of personal preference and not a matter of right or wrong, anyway.
Since the menacing fairing is gone, the trellis frame shines in all its splendor and the bulbous tank is neatly integrated with it. The short rear subframe provides just enough place for a roomy tuck and roll bespoke solo seat with dual shorty, slash-cut exhausts underneath it.
According to Ulfert Janssen, he belly pan was added for a better stance and “visual stability”. The black collector wraps are definitely one of the last things anyone expected to see on a Ninja H2, but this time they look just right.
The generous carbon fiber air intake ports and channel have been reduced to a smaller profile, but this might prove to be not enough in the real life. The supercharger increases dramatically the volume of air the Ninja H2 needs, and Kawasaki knew what they were doing when they added two large intake vents…
As for the front end, the lowered clip-ons are a wonderful complement for the yellow-lens retro round headlight, while the additional stacked projectors could be a bit overkill for some.
Anyway a slick-shod supercharged 200 hp café racer is definitely one thing we just don’t get to see everyday. But we do like what we see today! Did we mention the Ninja H2 pure silver paint?
The Ninja goes stealth
Those who don’t know how the Ninja H2 frame looks like will definitely have a hard time recognizing the Gannet café racer. This might be of course, both good and bad, depending on which side of bike design are you on.Some might argue that the café-racerized machine doesn’t retain enough of the original bike design, and is thus too far a stretch from the initial concept. On the other hand, diehard café racer fans will definitely acclaim Ulfert’s way of “hiding” the edgy H2 bike under the retro guise. We believe this is only a matter of personal preference and not a matter of right or wrong, anyway.
Since the menacing fairing is gone, the trellis frame shines in all its splendor and the bulbous tank is neatly integrated with it. The short rear subframe provides just enough place for a roomy tuck and roll bespoke solo seat with dual shorty, slash-cut exhausts underneath it.
According to Ulfert Janssen, he belly pan was added for a better stance and “visual stability”. The black collector wraps are definitely one of the last things anyone expected to see on a Ninja H2, but this time they look just right.
The generous carbon fiber air intake ports and channel have been reduced to a smaller profile, but this might prove to be not enough in the real life. The supercharger increases dramatically the volume of air the Ninja H2 needs, and Kawasaki knew what they were doing when they added two large intake vents…
As for the front end, the lowered clip-ons are a wonderful complement for the yellow-lens retro round headlight, while the additional stacked projectors could be a bit overkill for some.
Anyway a slick-shod supercharged 200 hp café racer is definitely one thing we just don’t get to see everyday. But we do like what we see today! Did we mention the Ninja H2 pure silver paint?
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