Bike Of The Week

Kawasaki GPz900R: Top Gun Legend That Changed Motorcycling

Published

3 days ago

Some motorcycles are remembered for their technical brilliance. Others for their cultural impact. A select few, like Kawasaki’s GPz900R, manage both.

It was the bike that rewrote the rulebook in the mid-1980s, and then — thanks to Tom Cruise — burned itself into pop-culture history as the ‘Top Gun’ Kawasaki.

The machine currently coming up for sale at the Silverstone Festival is a faithful replica of that very bike —restored, repainted, and brimming with nostalgia. But before we get carried away with Hollywood glamour, let’s remind ourselves why the GPz900R was such a landmark in its own right.

A Revolution on Two Wheels

By 1984, the world of superbikes was dominated by muscle-bound air-cooled fours nicknamed ‘UJMs’ – Universal Japanese Motorcycles – by the motorcycle press. They were fast, but increasingly dated.

Kawasaki had been working in secret for six years on something different. The result was the GPz900R (ZX900A), the world’s first 16-valve liquid-cooled inline four.

It was compact, narrow, and mounted lower in the frame than any rival, giving the bike handling that felt light-years ahead. With 115 horsepower on tap and a top speed nudging 151 mph, it was the first production motorcycle to break the 150-mph barrier. Quarter-mile times were in the 10-second range, yet it was smooth, comfortable, and capable of eating up motorway miles without fuss.

Within months of its launch, Kawasaki fielded GPz900Rs at the Isle of Man Production TT. They finished first and second—a statement of intent that confirmed the bike’s supremacy. This was the true dawn of the modern sports bike.

Enter Maverick

Of course, what cemented the GPz900R’s immortality wasn’t just performance – it was cinema. When Top Gun hit screens in 1986, audiences saw Tom Cruise’s Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell roaring along the runway, the GPz900R’s engine screaming as fighter jets thundered overhead.

Hollywood couldn’t have scripted a better advert for Kawasaki. The bike used in filming was a 1984 GPz900R, painted in Kawasaki’s 750 colours but stripped of logos. It wasn’t just a motorcycle anymore — it was rebellion, speed, and coolness personified. Sales surged. An entire generation of riders pinned posters of Cruise and his Kawasaki on their walls.

Even today, mention the GPz900R to anyone outside the biking fraternity, and the first reply is usually: “Oh, the Top Gun bike!”

The Replica at Silverstone

Lot 207 at this year’s Iconic Sale at the Silverstone Festival is a lovingly recreated ‘Top Gun’ GPz900. Registered new in the UK, it’s undergone a full restoration in 2022, complete with the correct colour scheme and lacquered decals. The bike is in running order, exempt from MOT and road fund licence, and comes with a thick history file including restoration photos, invoices, and old MOTs.

The estimate is £5,000–£7,000 plus premium — a sum that feels almost modest when you consider both the historical importance and the pop-culture halo of this machine. For the price of a mid-range modern commuter, you could own a slice of 1980s motorcycling history, rebuilt and ready to ride.

Classic bikes often trade on nostalgia, but the GPz900R is more than that. It was the spark that lit Kawasaki’s Ninja dynasty, a line that continues to this day in bikes like the ZX-10R. Its design philosophy — compact, powerful, and rider-friendly — still echoes in every modern sports bike.