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Review of the 1971 Kawasaki 500 H 1 Mach III:I survived the Mach III |
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Author: Hoss (Garry Cartwright), 2006-06-26, viewed 176 times. | ||||||
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It was electric blue and agonisingly beautiful. It was also my first bike and I lived to tell the tale. | ||||||
| 17 years old and I´d saved every penny I could so that I could buy a bike. A Honda 350 actually, but when I walked into the showroom and saw this vision in blue it was love at first site. (In New Zealand you could buy any bike at that age) Oh yeah I knew what it was. My dad had taken me into the city to buy a bike - he was a hard hard man. He knew what it was too, and he still said ´yeah sure´. Within five hours I´d dropped it and smashed the side cover. Christ it was frightening to ride for a novice. When the guy who sold it to me had shown me how to ride it, he used his left hand to work the choke. The Mach III had this really cool choke arrangement where you could just stick out your right thumb and work the choke as you wound on the throttle. I didn´t figure this out - I copied the guy who showed me the bike. Starting off from cold was always a nightmare until I worked out the right thumb thing. You had to keep the revs up - and the bike would either die or launch like a maniac. Surviving until the engine had warmed up was tough. I did it. The Mach III is maligned for its handling. Hell it was ok, you could scrape the pegs or the pipes depending on which sort of corner you where going round. Although if you hit six grand (I think it was six) when going around a corner it all got a bit intense. The power band came on with all of the finesse of a light switch. You were seriously world class stupid if you wound it into the power band on a corner. Everyone in my small town knew what a Mach III was. I was envied by those who had no bike and hated by those who did. Me and that bike hit the ground a lot of times. I lived through the experience and in the end sold it for peanuts. I´ve had a few other bikes over the years, but my memory always goes back to that gorgeous electic blue machine, it was like a seductress who was prepared to take your life it you weren´t carful. And by hell what a ride, front wheel suddenly slamming skywards, and an induction howl that let everyone know you were coming. Cops couln´t catch it - at least until you stopped because you weren´t even aware that they were chasing you(I found out). I always wonder what happened to that machine. I regret selling it. God I´d love to have it now. |
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