Katana Owners Club U.K.

Here's a 750 kat review as done by Grey Bike

Interesting article.
Btw. (Anorak mode on) The Japanese Katana symbol is not the symbol for the samurai sword, as stated in the text. It's just the symbol for the consonant "K". So I've been told by a former neighbour, who was Japanese.
(Anorak mode off)

Hi Pedda,
(Anorak mode on) The 刀 symbol indeed means "Katana". The "Ka" symbol from the Katakana alphabet (used to "phonetically write" foreign words) looks very much the same (カ), but the "left vertical bar" crosses the "top horizontal bar" and goes a bit further. When the Suzuki guys visited target DESIGN to be shown ED-1 in 1979, when the bike was uncovered they saw the 刀 and just exclaimed in unison "KATANA !". Had it been カ, they would have said "KA !". That would not have been as exciting ! (Anorak mode off)
;-P

Hmh - so my Jap neighbour was bad in spelling and writing then? Slight differences like you described above might be possible on the same type, don't you think? My handwriting will look different as yours, even machine typing is done with different looking fonts.
As to the project's name:
Several years ago we had a meeting with Hans A. Muth in Berlin for a presentation of his work for the Target Design Team (organized by the local Katana Club, held in the Hard Rock Cafe Berlin). He explained that it was left to him having the new designed GSX presented to the Suzuki bosses. When he prepared himself for that, he had the idea of combining the bike with the Samurai sword namewise, calling the whole project "Katana". By creating the association of strong Japanese Samurai traditions in the managers' heads and the sword being a good means for creating a certain design identity itself, he got the Suzuki bosses clapping their hands to the presentation in the end. Not a too easy job, that was, as Hans Muth pointed out. He speaks Japanese as he told us and he did choose the "Ka" symbol for the project. So I think the Suzuki guys exclaiming Katana! unisono is nothing but a myth, not verified by Hans Muth, who was there.

Hans Muth btw turned out to be a very sympathic bloke. He came to the Hard Rock Cafe together with his wife and too the time for about 2 hours of presentation of his work life as a product designer in general and his job on the Katana in particular. After that we had some beers and good talk. A mate of mine couldn't take part in that event because of job duties and we poked him with that every occasion we got, haha. So in the end he would call Hans Muth on the phone and talk to him. He got invited by him in his house and he visited him several times and was donated the original wind channel mould of the Katana disign, used at the Pininfarina factory wind channel. Now he got me jealous abut that, haha.

Good article!

And just to throw another varient in the mixing pot: i was in my local oreintal takeaway, and had my KOC T shirt on with the big katana logo on it.

And one of the people behind the counter pointed towards the logo and said
" Knife"

I just love anorak info

Russbusa wrote:I just love anorak info

Me too, I'd better find another article to scan & see what that brings up

PS thanks to whoever condensed my original post...


















...now tell me how to do it

Scan them as jpegs and email them over and I'll use my Acrobat professional on it.