Kawasaki Teryx KRX4 1000 eS: The Ultimate North Country Toy?
If, like so many, you’ve recently acquired a cottage property (no doubt during the pandemic) and thanks to work-from-anywhere culture, you’ve probably spent plenty of time there enjoying the scenery and peace and quiet. You might also be getting tired of beers on the dock, canoe rides, and listening to the loons. Equally, there’s only so many times you can circle the same lake on a boat. If this is starting to sound all too familiar, then you might be considering upping the ante on excitement. Even if you’re not, you will be after your first ride in this thing — the Kawasaki Teryx KRX4 1000.
First, let’s decipher the name. The most important bits are the “4” and “1000”. It seats four full-sized people ,and has a 1000cc (999 actually), two-cylinder engine that makes 112 horsepower. This doesn’t sound like much until you consider it only weighs 1,001 kilos, and is geared to top out at around 110 km/h. On unpaved terrain and without a windshield to speak of, I can assure you it feels plenty fast. It’s also what’s known as a side-by-side (SXS in ATV parlance) which means, well, you sit side-by-side — in two rows, in this case.
Kawasaki Teryx KRX4 1000
Kawasaki Teryx KRX4 1000
Kawasaki Teryx KRX4 1000
Kawasaki Teryx KRX4 1000
Kawasaki Teryx KRX4 1000
Kawasaki Teryx KRX4 1000
While the KRX4 certainly zips along fast enough to freeze you to death in the winter, side-by-sides are really meant to be three-season toys. Off-roading fans will recognize and rejoice at the Fox brand suspension bits equipped, but on the eS Special Edition you get the added advantage of the Kawasaki Electronic Control Suspension setup. Three selectable adaptive modes can be set to adapt the ride performance of the FOX 2.5 live valve internal bypass shocks.
As you push the boundaries of the KRX4 you’ll be playing with suspension setup a bit more, but from the get-go what you really need to know is that you’ve got mammoth ground clearance (think Military HUMVEE) and suspension travel that can soak up whatever you throw at it — including jumps! Yes, that’s right. Whereas jumping your car is frowned upon by police, prosecutors, and society in general, jumping your ATV on a trail is encouraged, or at least somewhat expected.
As a first time ATVer I had to readjust my brain to the types of obstacles I could hurl this thing at and simply drive over. While I have some off-road driving experience, I wasn’t prepared for the extreme capability of a vehicle like this. Boulders, logs, ruts, four-foot snowbanks… There wasn’t much of anything that could get in the way of this thing. Even if it did, the KRX4 1000 is equipped with a WARN winch to pull yourself out of trouble.
Let me put it this way, the KRX4 was so much bloody fun that it’s the only thing my 12-year-old has asked to do other than play video games for as long as I can remember. That’s how visceral and exciting it can be, that’s the level of dopamine, adrenaline, and endorphins it can release. It’s basically a remote-controlled dune buggy (Tamiya Boomerang, anyone?) you can sit in and drive.
If all that isn’t enough there are endless routes for modification, ensuring that this will be a money sink-hole hobby, par excellence. There are bigger winches, windshields, wheels and tires, racks and boxes, and anything else you can imagine. Better still, it can all more-or-less be installed by a rank amateur, and perhaps even their young offspring — making for bonding moments, and positive core memories. All this stuff is fairly inexpensive, if you’re accustomed to $6K winter wheel and tire packages for your yuppy uber-mobile.
And so now I have to have one. It’s opened my eyes to a whole new world of motoring, cottaging, and adventure, and the fact it seats four is ideal for sharing the fun. Imagine the dust and mud-soaked adventures we will have in pursuit of hidden lakes as well as simmering pies (there’s a pizza place on the local trail). It’s the perfect antidote to our boring and sanitized roads with their enthusiastic enforcement, and mundane architecture.
Learn more about the Kawasaki Teryx KRX4 1000 here.
