Figuring that the new turbocharged Z1R-TC would beef up Kawasaki’s image as a muscle bike company, they set and waited for the sales reports to come in. Improved, but hardly earth-shattering. Even though these bikes boasted unbelievably impressive performance, the Z1-R just wasn’t the success that they had hoped for. About 250 of these Stardust TC’s were built. The sales team came up with one more idea. They thought the Stardust Silver paint may not have been the best choice for such a high performance bike.

           And now....  "The rest of the story".

  In 1979, California passed a law banning the modification of a factory exhaust system. The TC conversions were stopped, and there were to be no more Turbo Cycle bikes manufactured. Only about 250 Molly TC’s were ever produced. They likely remain the rarest production Japanese bike ever built.

  The decision was made to repaint some of the Z1-R bikes still waiting to be converted by Turbo Cycle. They chose Black, and the paint was applied right over the original Stardust color! A California specialty company called Molly Graphics would design a brightly colored striping scheme over the new black paint to make these bikes really stand out. In addition, ATP had made some improvements to their turbo system, and those would also make their way onto these new TC’s. These new bikes would forever be known as the "Molly TC".

  Pretty soon, these Z1R-TC’s were shattering drag racing records everywhere. With over 180 horsepower on tap, the “stock” TC could reportedly run a ¼ mile in around 9.59 seconds! At the time it was the “quickest production motorcycle” And, the new Molly paint scheme made certain that EVERYONE knew who manufactured it! The TC bikes sold out quickly in 1979. Kawasaki sales finally increased, and the experiment was deemed a success. But wait…. This isn’t the end of the story!