It's no secret that Kawasaki is making plays in the go-fast side-by-side space. With the introduction of the Teryx H2, the supercharged behemoth has become the fastest, most powerful production side-by-side on the planet. And it hasn't stopped there, as it's also dropped a rock-crawling regular Teryx sans supercharger not too long after.
But Kawasaki is apparently working on something that's not only truly wild, but it would be the first-ever for the side-by-side market.
While the base idea for this ridiculous patent seems to be in relation to the Teryx KRX Rock Edition, which is one designed for rock crawling, that specific model doesn't go as far as some other rock crawling side-by-sides. For example, Can-Am's Maverick R X rc. But this patent not only goes up to the Can-Am, but oh so far beyond it.
How does a factory-produced rock bouncer sound? Yeah, you read that right, a Kawasaki-built rock bouncer with a supercharged engine and a cage built for the South East's most famous rock climbing insanity. I'm so in.
Unearthed by our friends at UTVDriver, the patent clearly shows two things you'd want from a rock bouncer, i.e., the very distinct pistachio-shaped cage of a rock bouncer, and portal axles. Let's talk about the cage first, though, as it's about as wild as you can imagine.
For those who've never seen rock bouncers, it's a class of off-road machines that is less rock crawling and more rock demolishing. Routinely found in the Southeast United States, rock bouncing takes all the fun of rock crawling and adds horsepower and nitrous. The idea is simple. Face a nearly vertical rock face, line up with your machine, floor it at the rocks, and see if you can make it to the top without flipping backward, slamming into a tree, or running over a drunk spectator standing five feet off the racing line.
It's bananas, and the machines themselves run from heavily modified UTVs to NASCAR-powered hellions, all with cages that look pretty streamlined and built to withstand a nuke going off. That's the shape seen in this Kawasaki patent, too. Built Ford Tough, as it were.
There are gussets and crossbars everywhere, making it likely the most overbuilt cage I've ever seen to come out of the side-by-side world. Likewise, you've got the very clear drawings of what are known as portal axles.
Portal axles basically raise the height of a vehicle without having to add suspension or lose ground clearance, as they attach to the wheel hubs themselves. This allows folks to not only run with more underside clearance, but because portals also push hubs out, you can run bigger tires. And based on the patent drawings, Kawasaki is clearly looking to run the biggest tires ever fitted to a production side-by-side.
Now here's where a little bit of prognostication comes into play, as the patent itself doesn't say whether or not this whole thing is powered by Kawasaki's new supercharged engine. And while that specific powerplant is currently the subject to a fairly big recall, one that lunches the gearbox, I'm fairly certain for what this machine intends to be, you'd want to use that motor. For a vehicle like this, those 250 rampaging horses are gonna be necessary, not only to get over obstacles, but just to overcome the wheel weight of those massive freakin' tires.
What I love about this patent, however, is just how outside the box it is. We've seen a host of regular side-by-sides get modified to do better at certain things with aftermarket support. But this is from Kawasaki. It's from the factory. It's weird and wonderful and I hope they actually bring it to market and we hit up a Holler down south to put it through its paces.
