I designed over 20 paint schemes for Kawasaki UK’s ZX-10RR, and these are the three they chose to use on a limited edition run of just 40 of these homologation specials.
I love designing bike concepts, and one of the parts of the process that is so satisfying is painting them afterwards. As well as my own designs I’ll sometimes take a retro paint scheme and transplant it to the new concept. I reckon I’ve got a decent idea of what will work and what won’t so when Kawasaki UK asked me to come up with some ideas for the 40th anniversary of the Ninja with a special edition ZX-10RR I was more than happy to get involved.
Now the ZX-10R is a ridiculously fast superbike and the RR version is an even faster bike – aimed at trackday nutters and race teams it comes with all manner of lighter engine internals to allow it to rev higher as well as Marchesini wheels to improve the handling. It’s been pretty successful too as it’s won the World Superbike championships no less than seven times over the last decade.
So using various Ninjas over the years for reference and inspiration like the GPZ600 from the 80s, the ZXRs from the 90s, the MotoGP bikes from the noughties, and even bikes that weren’t strictly Ninjas but carried some of the same Ninja attitude like the KR500 racebike from the late 70s.
In total I came up with over 20 paintschemes, and this was eventually narrowed down to a shortlist of just six that were posted up on Kawasaki’s facebook page for their followers to decide on a winner.
In the end there was one design but in three different colour variants that got the most votes, and these are the ones that Kawasaki went with.
Initially revealed in Kawasaki’s Club magazine they were unveiled to the public at the Motorcycle Live show in Birmingham in front of hundreds of Kawasaki fans where I was also interviewed during the event. I have to say… this was a big moment for me as I’d not seen the final bikes in the flesh and I was absolutely buzzing for days afterwards! The standard ZX-10RR is £24,799 and the Anniversary Editions are £26,599… if they haven’t sold out already.
Check out the video below for the FULL story and let me know what you think of the other designs on Facebook or Instagram!
