Kawasaki

Kawasaki (Full name: Kawasaki Heavy Industries Motorcycle and Engine Company) is a Japanese small-engine manufacturer primarily known for their motorcycles, and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the larger multi-national Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. The company is named after its founder Shōzō Kawasaki, and has dual headquarters in Chūō-ku, Kobe and Minato, Tokyo.

This Japanese motorcycle manufacturer has so far only appeared in Tourist Trophy.

Kawasaki in Motorsports
Kawasaki's traditional racing colour is green. Many Kawasaki racing teams are called Team Green. The "Monster Energy Kawasaki Team Green™" provides a support program developing amateur motocross racers. Kawasaki's first title was with Dave Simmonds in 1969 when they won the 125cc World Championship. Kawasaki dominated the 250cc and 350cc Grand Prix classes from 1978 to 1982 winning four titles in each category. With the introduction of the four-stroke engines into MotoGP in 2002, Kawasaki decided to take part in the new MotoGP World Championship. They entered the championship in 2003 with 250cc Grand Prix racer Harald Eckl's Team Eckl. In 2003, the Kawasaki Racing Team was formed after Kawasaki had developed their new 990cc ZX-RR bike throughout 2002 and raced it in the last three races of the 2002 MotoGP season. The racing activities were managed by Harald Eckl's team based in Germany. It wasn't until 2004 that Kawasaki had two riders - Alex Hofmann and Shinya Nakano, who raced for the entire season. Nakano placed 3rd in Japan that year achieving Kawasaki's first podium finish in MotoGP. In 2007, Kawasaki split from Harald Eckl because of Eckl’s involvement with a competitor's MotoGP activities, which forced Kawasaki to terminate the relationship immediately. Kawasaki formed Kawasaki Motors Racing, a European subsidiary of Kawasaki Heavy Industries responsible for managing the racing activities of the MotoGP team and any other motorcycle racing activities Kawasaki may enter in the future. For the first time since they returned to the premier class of motorcycle racing, the team became a complete ‘in house’ factory team. On January 9, 2009, Kawasaki announced it had decided to "... suspend its MotoGP racing activities from 2009 season onward and reallocate management resources more efficiently". The company stated that it will continue racing activities using mass-produced motorcycles as well as supporting general race oriented consumers.