NOW THAT THERE IS FUNNY...
that ain't how motorcycles are assembled... especially at Kawasaki...
Well the gen2 improvements were significant and attractive, but probably not attractive enough to entice jumping from a gen 1.... UNLESS you just love the platform and want to to a brand new bike to start the love affair all over again and keep what you like and move most of the farkles, etc. Quite a few people have done that. Those with a 2008 can warp to an 11-year newer without any risk or uncertainty.
But it is disappointing they hadn't been interested in a real/significant gen3 kinda concept- with cruise, LED lights, fancier dash, re-base on the zzr14 engine instead of zr14, etc.
I will point out that although there is no 2018 C14 in EU, there is in other markets, including USA/CA, so we still don't really know if the platform is dead or not. Most likely it is, but who knows for sure...
my response was directed to the "due to their being a warehouse somewhere full of rolling frames with engines in " posting... I know they have tonnage of parts, they just don't assemble them until the time is prioritized to fill active orders.
never mind, the point was missed...
See link below to new sport tourer from Kawsaki. The Concours is done in Europe now due to Euro 4. Evidently Kawasaki has had this new sport touring bike up their sleeve and hence no big updates to the C14.
This new bike seems more orientated toward sport than the C14.
http://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/new-bikes/2017/october/kawasaki-supercharged-ninja-h2-sx/
Probably won't even carry the market-leading 3-year, cheaply extendable to 9-year warranty. Sigh.
No more "probably" about it, the H2SX has only a 1 year warranty.
Yes, the H2SX has everything you want in a Connie and less (less weight, less displacement) for more (50% more MSRP).