Kawasaki W 800 par MRS Oficina 2021 — Specifications

Turning a Kawasaki W 800 into a motocross machine — that took some nerve. Yet that's exactly the challenge Mario took on, founder of the Portuguese workshop MRS Oficina, for his fourth build on a Kawasaki platform. After tackling the Vulcan S, the Z 650, and the Z 900 RS, the builder now sets his sights on an icon from the green brand's lineup: the W 800 Street, a gentle 773 cc neo-retro parallel twin built for Sunday rides. The result, dubbed MRS 4, is a radical scrambler that bears no resemblance whatsoever to the original machine. And the price tag of 15,000 euros gives some idea of the scale of the undertaking.

The heart of the project rests on a surgical transplant. Mario sourced the inverted fork and swingarm from a KX 450, Kawasaki's motocross beast, and adapted them to the W 800's steel double-cradle frame. On paper, the idea sounds simple. In practice, it's a dimensional nightmare: nothing matches between the two platforms, and the frame had to be cut and modified to accommodate the new swingarm. The 49 mm inverted telescopic hydraulic fork now offers 305 mm of travel, a figure worthy of a true off-road machine. At the rear, Mario spared no expense: he turned to Öhlins for two custom-built lateral shock absorbers, capable of handling jumps while remaining visually consistent with the overall design. More than 400 hours of work were needed to complete this project, and it's easy to see why.

The 773 cc vertical twin remains faithful to the original. Its 48 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 62.8 Nm of torque available from 4,800 rpm won't make any track rider tremble, but that's not the point. This four-valve-per-cylinder engine, with its 77 mm bore and 83 mm stroke, delivers its power in a linear and usable manner. The bevel drive, a mechanical hallmark of the Kawasaki W lineage, gives this machine a distinctive sound character and a personality found nowhere else on the current market. The five-speed gearbox and chain final drive round out a mechanical package designed for reliability rather than outright performance.

On the aesthetic side, Mario crafted everything himself. The fenders, front number plate, side panels, and skid plate are all hand-shaped from aluminum. The tank was cut, welded, and reworked until it perfectly matched the aggressive silhouette of the machine. Excel rims fitted with knobby Bridgestone tires in 90/90-21 at the front and 140/80-18 at the rear give the W 800 the look of a genuine enduro machine. The exhaust, shortened and resized, is also handmade. The side panels bear the number 1 in tribute to Eli Tomac, Kawasaki's motocross rider in the United States. And the blue leather seat, embroidered with the original W logo, adds an unexpected touch of refinement to such a muscular scrambler.

This kind of build isn't aimed at the everyday rider. It speaks to collectors, to enthusiasts of one-of-a-kind pieces, to those who see motorcycles as objects of mechanical art as much as a means of transportation. Compared to factory scramblers like the Ducati Desert Sled or the Triumph Scrambler 1200, the MRS 4 plays in a league of its own: that of pure craftsmanship, where every part tells a story. Mario is already dreaming of an MRS 5 fitted with a supercharger. Knowing the man, there's every reason to take him seriously.