The market for motorcycles in 1968 was changing from utilitarian transport to more aggressive sporting motorcycles that disregarded fuel economy and noise, in favor of quicker quarter mile times, which were prominently advertised by manufacturers. While Kawasaki had an inline-four four-stroke in development, it was not going be ready in time to upstage the 1969 Honda CB750, so instead they moved up the release of their conventional piston port two-stroke triple to "make a real splash". They turned to the N100 Plan, a project begun in June, 1967, whose intent was to design the most powerful production motorcycle engine in the world. They first considered increasing the bore of an existing engine but instead created an all-new engine, experimenting with both inline and L cylinder arrangements, with both two and three cylinders. They settled on an inline-three arrangement after testing showed that an inline layout did not adversely affect cooling of the middle cylinder.