The UK Drifter Owners Group
I saw my first Drifter purely by chance on the internet in early 1999,
two months later my brand new VN800 C1 was sitting on the drive.
Since then it has received a few modifications.(
Paul's Drifter)
I joined up with the only Group around at the time, the Vulcan Drifter Owners Group (VDOG)
in the US. (#0093) Having joked about going over for a Rally if they held one, I then
found myself planning my first Rally trip to Drift-In 01 at the aptly named location at
Prairie Du Chein in Wisconsin in July 2001. It soon became apparent that there were few
accessories available for UK owners and so inspired by the bike and my trip, I set about
designing the first UKDOG website specifically to help out UK owners.
The bikes in the UK were badged as Kawasaki Drifters, rather than Vulcan Drifters (as in
the US), so along the lines of the original VDOG naming convention, I decided to call the
group UKDOG. The aim was to provide as much information to UK owners as possible
and try and get interested owners to share their passion for this iconic motorcycle which
was designed as a tribute to the old Indian Chief. Unfortunately we couldn't make the US
Drift-In the following year (in fact it would be five years till we made it back), but I
continued with my enthusiasm for our now growing UK group, hoping that we would have our own
rallies alongside.
In October 2003, we had our first 'rally' at the
East Coast Drifter Meet where 8 of us lined our bikes up and we first displayed our
UKDOG Banner. Two years later in June 2005 we had our first Annual Drifter Rally up at
Matlock which sparked the start of many more, with enthusiastic members helping to organise
them up and down the country. For more info on future and past events, visit the
Events page.
Now that we are coming up to the 10th anniversay of the launch of the Drifter (at the
Munich Motorcycle Show in October 1998), we have relaunched the new and improved website and
are thinking about how best to celebrate this unique Motorcycle.
We hope you enjoy looking round the site and welcome you to join the group
(Paul & Les)
The Kawasaki Drifter (or Vulcan Drifter as it's known in the USA) was designed and taken to the Kawasaki production line, thanks to
Denny Berg , Ken Boyko, Don Emde and John Hoover, and was originally named the SuperChief. When Kawasaki started production it had a pre-defined 6 year span and was never intended to go beyond that.
The first Drifter was put on show at the Munich Motorcycle Show in October 1998 and was released for sale in the UK in early 1999 with the VN800 C1 available in Pearl Burnish Beige and Sunbeam Red and the VN1500 J1 available just in Deep Gooseberry. There were several models
available in the UK after that (check out UK models) but production for the UK was discontinued in late 2002 with the last VN800 E2 and VN1500 R2, though you could still get hold of new UK bikes for quite a while after, and also import models from Europe.
In the US, the VN1500's were available from the outset, but they had to wait till a year after the UK to get the VN800, though it was available in neighbouring Canada. As a result, VN800 production for the US continued a year later than the VN1500. So the US had the VN1500 R3-R5 models for 2003-2005, and the VN800 E3-E6F models for 2003-2006.
For more information and reviews, check out these Miscellaneous Links.