THE BIG KAT PROWLS AGAIN

Spend any amount of time in Japan, and it quickly becomes clear that everything they do, from cooking to gardening, from flower arranging to engineering, is carried out with great care, precision and devotion. There’s no room for half measures or a ‘that’ll do’ attitude. The thinking seems to be that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. And if getting the right result takes time, so be it.

So, you can imagine the shock when Suzuki engineers – who would consider three years a reasonable development cycle for a new bike – learnt about the timeframes of the Katana project. They were expected to go from a design concept into mass production in just over a year – and this was a remake of the Katana, one of the most iconic bikes in the company’s history. You could hear the engineers’ screams of despair a mile away.

Adding to the challenge was the fact that the whole project was based on a concept bike created by Italian designer Rodolfo Frascoli, with no consultation with the factory. Suzuki bosses simply saw it at a show and decided to make this the rebirth of the Katana. So, the Suzuki team was given an artist’s impression of a bike, and