1967 Kawasaki C2TR 120 Road Runner. Owner: Cliff Schoening, Bremerton, Washington.

This was a little cutie, and inexpensive, too. Just $430 ($3,200 today) would get you this minimalist high-piped single in 1967. Not that the bike was set up for quarter-mile times, but a real lightweight rider with a strong wind at his back might break 20 seconds. What do you expect from a 120"

Kawasaki was the last of the Japanese Big Four to get into the American market, when an American-owned subsidiary appeared in Chicago in 1963 offering a few two-stroke singles. Early ads promoted its connection with the Kawasaki Aircraft Co. Ltd., which was shut down following WWII but started building planes again in 1954. The big K soon saw the error of its ways and set up a Kawasaki-owned operation in Los Angeles in 1965, sensibly giving the Americans involved a good deal of say in what should be built for the U.S. market. 
Two-stroke singles were the rage, cheap and simple, the essential engine having just three moving parts. In the home market Kawasaki knew that winning on Sunday meant selling on Monday, so it worked hard to score points in the racing world of Japan, using rotary valves instead of the old-fashioned piston-port design and applying the same sophistication to its street bikes.

In 1964 Kawasaki showed the C2SS (Street Scrambler) to the home market, an attractive little single intended for the pavement, with a stylish upswept exhaust pipe. It also offered the...