Kawasaki provided its all-terrain vehicle (ATV) line-up with a new range-topper in the autumn of 1998. Will the auto-boxed KVF prove suitably ‘creamy’ for the Kwacker faithful? profi travelled to Devon to find out
Auto transmissions are certainly in vogue within the UK’s highly competitive ATV sector. First we looked at Honda’s ‘halfway house’, a semi-auto that electrically shifts through a mechanical gearbox (profi 11/98); then came the full auto and monstrously powered 595cc Yamaha Grizzly (profi 2/99); and, most recently, we drove the much improved Polaris diesel auto (profi 4/99). This month it’s the turn of Kawasaki.
So why the sudden interest in autos? Well, to be fair, the US firm Polaris has been preaching the auto message for years: ‘Jump on and go’ convenience; no kick-shift to master; the bike, rather than the operator, selects the most appropriate ratio for the job – and so on.
Indeed, Polaris’s auto argument has always had much to commend it; it’s just that its Japanese rivals – and their US customers – have been slow to accept the concept. But now that US buyers, who account for about 80% of global ATV sales, have decided auto is desirable, the major Japanese players have taken the hint and adopted the technology – big time.
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