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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)

Drifter History

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 the links in the Miscellaneous section.

Websites & Forums

In a similar fashion there have been a number of websites and forums created specifically by and for Drifter owners, sharing a host of sometimes otherwise hard to find information. The original VDOG website in the US was started by Taz in December 1999 and a follow on website was created by Bulldog in July 2001 to host information specifically for the Drift-In rallies, following the first Drift-In 01 in Wisconsin.

Inspired by the Taz's site and the fact that it was harder to get any kind of accessories in the UK anywhere, I started the UKDOG website in December 2001, though I had many pictures of my bike with custom made accessories, plus Rab's Sky Blue 800 C2, Clive's Red Sunbeam 800 C1 and Robin's Custom Painted Blue & Cream 1500, on a personal website as early as July 2001. So the UKDOG website is now the longest running Drifter specific website worldwide.

Chief started the Vulcan Drifter Riders website in August 2006 which is currently the main US website as the original VDOG and Drift-In sites are offline at present. Anders started the Sweedish club in September 2003 and the following website a year later in December 2004. There are also a number of other active Drifter sites around the world that we have links to, in Canada, Germany, France and Belgium for example. Check out the Websites list in the Links section for more details.

If you're looking to talk with fellow Drifter owners, then there are also plenty of forums to read and join up with. Also some of the websites have their own integral forums and guestbooks, like Sweeden for example. The main forums you've probably come across already are the original VDOG forum, again setup by Taz in June 1999, the Delphi forum setup by Motordawg in July 2000 which is now run by Virg, our very own UKDOG forum started in February 2002, the Canadian forum started in July 2003 and the Vulcan Drifter Riders forum started by Chief around the same time as the website in 2006. There are many others though. Again, check out the Forums list in the Links section for more info.