The bikes that are revealed on these pages are usually hot off the press. The shoot is finished, the images are graded and an email lands in our inbox within a couple of days.
This amazing Kawasaki, however, first surfaced two years ago at The Quail Gathering. And it?s only just been shot properly. But that?s okay, because the bike took master builder Mike LaFountain seven years to complete?and nearly broke him in the process.

Mike has created a stunning replica of the ultra-rare W1R, which was Kawasaki?s late 1960s equivalent of the legendary Matchless G45 production racer.
?Years ago, I came across a photo that would haunt me for nearly a decade,? says Mike. ?It was a blurry black-and-white shot of a motorcycle that I?d never heard of.?
This was the only known shot in circulation of the W1R. It was technically a race version of the W1 650, which was a pretty rare motorcycle itself. The W1 650 was Kawasaki?s first attempt to break into the larger displacement motorcycle market in North America, and in many ways a copy of the BSA A10.
Mike scoured the net looking for more information on the elusive W1R. ?I even got a Japanese friend of mine to dig through the archives of Japanese websites, but there is almost no literature on it.?

At Raccia Motorcycles, Mike?s forte is taking Japanese motorcycles and recasting them in the mold of classic British and Italian race bikes?while using period Japanese parts. (“That way, the bike would technically still be Japane...