In a teaser comment on social media, Kawasaki has hinted that it has a two-stroke motorcycle in development. Admittedly, it is only a hint, but a significant one, in a ten-second post in which the company responds to pleas from two-stroke fans with the phrase, “We heard you!”

More substantial evidence that Kawasaki is working on a two-stroke came in July 2024, when it submitted a patent application for a new stroker motor employing fuel-injection, a turbocharger and inlet valves operated by a camshaft. These changes could make a new-generation two-stroke far less polluting than the old-school engines, and more efficient in fuel use, while retaining their traditional benefits of high power and relatively low weight. It looks like any claims to two-stroke ‘simplicity’ though, can be consigned to history.

In 2024, there were rumours that Kawasaki’s new engine was destined for aeronautical use, but the company has denied that , so surely it’s for a motorcycle? Maybe not urban transport, where the long-term trend is electric, but perhaps the next-generation KX motocrosser could go back to two-stroke power.

At the BMF,  chair Jim Freeman had this to say about the prospect of a 21st Century two-stroke. “Bring it on! Like those Kawasaki ads used to say, ‘Let the good times roll’. Does it sound complicated? Not really, no two stroke since the MZ doesn’t have some sort of valve induction, actually I seem to remember a bloke called Ernst Degner took disc valve tech with him when he defected in the early 1960s. The only real novelty is the forced induction. Fuel injection? Show me any ICE that doesn’t have that in 2025.”

Written by Peter Henshaw

Top image courtesy of Michael Montgomery.