Can you believe it? It’s 40 years since the ‘Ninja’ moniker first appeared on a Kawasaki sportsbike and, to celebrate, the company is offering a 1990s inspired retro livery for its family of four-cylinder Ninjas in 2024.

The Ninja name was first applied, in the US at least, to the iconic GPZ900R when it was released in 1984. The name became synonymous with fast Kwackers over the years and is so ubiquitous it is now pretty much applied to any new faired Kawasaki.

Where the first Ninjas typically wore the red, black and gold colours associated with the GPz range of the time, the 2024 livery harks back to the early ZXR era of the 1990s. The green, blue and white colours were seen on the 1989 ZXR750R and were famous for their association with the world championship winning endurance and superbike machines campaigned by riders such as Carl Fogarty, Aaron Slight and Rob Phillis in the early 1990s. The colours were a popular choice on other racy Kawasaki road bikes, like the two-stroke KR-1S and ZXR400R, as well as the range-topping 750 of the period, and most recently a rebooted version made a popular appearance on Jonathan Rea’s ZX-10RR world superbike racer at the end of 2021.

Rea’s machine drew such acclaim that the livery was offered by Kawasaki UK on some ZX-10Rs and now the company is offering an official Ninja 40^th Anniversary range, covering the 200bhp ZX-10R superbike, 636cc ZX-6R and the screaming new ZX-4RR.

Arriving in dealerships from January, the anniversary editions are mechanically unchanged from the standard versions – being purely cosmetic exercises – but the detailing looks good and it goes a step further than the locally done paint jobs, with a discrete but celebratory logo on the fuel tanks, lime green wheels, silver (rather than black) painted frame and the obligatory big Kawasaki sticker on the fairing. The company say the designs were taken straight from the original drawings (albeit adapted to the more modern shapes) and undoubtedly they’ll appeal to the die hard Kawi fans.

Prices are up by a few hundred pounds on the non-anniversary editions, which are still available, with the ZX-4RR coming in at £8899, the ZX-6R costing £10849 and the ZX-10R setting buyers back £17,749.