This freindship between Kawi and suzuki seems one sided. Kawi gets the z400, lt50, lt80 and Im sure theres more to come. What does suzuki get? Profits (I suppose) I just read in the DW mag suzuki is supposedly building a bigbore 4x4 but not useing the 650 prarie motor(RUMOR)? Whats the deal with this relationship? I dont get it?

 

I'm sure that Suzuki is not selling Kawasaki their ATVs and dirtbikes for cost, there has to be a little bit of a profit built into it. Besides the machines themselves, Suzuki will also make money off of parts and such. Don't forget, Suzuki also got rebadged KX60, KX65, and KX100 motocross bikes and the KLX110 dirtbike.

Who knows what the bottom line of the agreement is, but rest assured that neither company would have signed an agreement if they didn't think that they would make money at it. Businesses are in business to turn a profit.

 

Kawi also got the DRZ-400 bike.

 

Of course it was for profit![img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] Both companies had holes in their line-ups that were filled with each others machines. The MX bikes and sport street bikes were left out of the agreement since they are updated so often anyway.

 

Rockrider,
Where did kawi fill any holes for suzuki?

 

Lookes like Suzuki is just uping there total sales for each unit by selling them to Kawasaki.
Suzuki is and was a strong company, but Kawasaki was in a little trouble with lack of competitive products other then the P650 utility quads.
To the public it looks bad for Kawasaki that they have to buy a quad from there competitor and resell it as there own in order to improve its sport quad image.
If Dodge had to buy Ford trucks in order to have a truck to sell, it would look real bad for Dodge, maby even terminal.
Just my 2 cents and how I see it.

 

LOL, dodge did have to get bailed out. I believe the most costly bail out in the U.S. history. They were a POS then and are a POS now. Had the 01 1500 series, sold it in 2 months, what a POS.

Kawi is Kawi heavy industries. Get one thing straight in all your facts, Kawi is by far the larger company. They did get any thing they wanted from suzuki with minimal return. Kawi is very much not liking the agreement and it doesn't look to last much longer.

I have no quirrels with any companies. But lay the facts down as the big picture, your rite some one got bailed out but I think you should think who.

 

gaff, I think MegaCrash was comparing the motorsports divisions. Yes, KHI is the parent company to the motorsports division and it is a very large, diverse holding, but Kawasaki is at the bottom rung as far as motorsport sales are concerned, as far as I know.

Perhaps someone else could shed some light on the market share numbers???

 

No one is selling anything to anyone. It's a mutual joint venture. They sell twice as many toys for the same cost. Did you ever hear of...Ford and Mercury? GMC and Chevrolet? Dodge and Chrysler? Acura and Honda? This is the same thing!

 

Not to change the subject, but it kinda deals with what we are talking about. I don't know if anyone else has heard this yet, but Ford is going to use the Chevy Allison 5-speed automatic tranny in their new Super Duty very shortly and they are going to use the tranny out of the Corvette in the SVO Mustang Cobra. I heard this at the GM school I go to, they also have Ford and Dodge programs at the same school, it was actually the Ford instructor that told our GM instructor that Ford was going to be using GM transmissions.