Kawasaki 650 VULCAN 70 par Mr Martini 2016 — Specifications

There are motorcycles that simply ride, and others that tell a story just by standing on their kickstand. The H1 500 Mach III belongs to the second category. This 1970s Kawasaki triple, uncontrollable and intoxicating, built a sulfurous reputation that today's manufacturers would no longer dare claim. It is precisely this ghost that Italian builder Mr Martini decided to summon in 2016, taking a Vulcan 650 S as his base — a modern, accessible, thoroughly tame custom — and grafting onto it the visual soul of an era when motorcycles were genuinely dangerous.

The result is called the Vulcan 70, and it is an unabashedly stylistic exercise. Twenty-four bespoke parts were designed and manufactured to transform the silhouette of Kawasaki's small custom. This is no simple sticker-and-tape restyling: a redesigned tank painted in the iconic green of the 1974 H2B or the deep burgundy red of the 1975 H2C, a quilted seat in black or beige depending on the chosen colorway, a round headlight, old-school chromed tail light and turn signals, a roadster handlebar, reworked footpegs, a Zard exhaust, and small side panels stamped "Vulcan 70." The coherence is there, and so is the craftsmanship. For those who want to go further, Mr Martini offers optional Kineo spoked wheels, fork gaiters, round mirrors, and a chromed front fender. At that point, the lineage back to the legends of Akashi becomes difficult to deny.

Production is deliberately limited: one hundred numbered examples, not one more. The kit is priced at €3,500, to be added to the €10,990 base price. And you must travel to Italy to place an order, with no French distribution planned. That is the price of exclusivity, and also of a positioning that clearly targets an audience of connoisseurs — motorcycle culture enthusiasts as much as riders seeking sensation at the handlebars. This is not a motorcycle for nervous beginners or touring riders looking to swallow miles in comfort. It is a machine for those who know exactly what they are buying.

Beneath the bodywork, the 649 cc parallel twin remains untouched. Its 61 horsepower at 7,500 rpm and 62.8 Nm of torque at 6,600 rpm will never provoke the same uncontrollable adrenaline rush as the smoking three-cylinder of old. The 705 mm seat height remains accessible, the 41 mm telescopic fork and lateral mono-shock do their job without pretension, and the six-speed gearbox shifts smoothly. It is a sound, predictable platform that allows relaxed riding where the original H1 kept you constantly on edge. The 300 mm front brake with dual-piston caliper delivers drama-free stopping power, all the way up to a claimed top speed of 180 km/h. It is a far cry from the suicidal thrills of the seventies, and that is probably a good thing.

The Vulcan 70 does not aspire to be a performance motorcycle. It aspires to be a desirable object, a piece of motorcycle culture dressed to ride. In that specific register, Mr Martini's work is hard to fault. Direct competitors in the 650 cc custom segment — the Honda CB650R, the Royal Enfield Meteor 500 — offer nothing comparable in terms of historical visual identity. They are modern, sometimes handsome, but they have no legend to invoke. The Vulcan 70, on the other hand, carries sixty years of Kawasaki mythology on its tank, and that is visible at first glance.