Kawasaki’s motorcycles began at a warplane maker the Allies had barred from building aircraft.
The company began as a Tokyo shipyard in 1878, and its aircraft arm built the Hien, a wartime fighter the Allies first took for a Messerschmitt. When the occupation banned aircraft in 1945, Kawasaki got by making frying pans. In 1949 the engineers of Kawasaki Aircraft began designing a motorcycle engine.
Kawasaki on Brandseum