Once upon a time I was gonna cut its tail off

Reading 577Nitro's topic "to mod or not to mod" I was brought back to when I just found my KZ. Some very knowledgeable and rather irritated people (even a bit angry maybe?), like dear ed650, answered my first post on here about a project bike I was looking at. Back then I had no idea what I had found. I was gonna make something really nice, a café racer maybe? Little did I know that approximately 7 years later I was testing some new bikes (Yamaha MT-07 for example) only to get a revelation:

Oh boy such power (relatively), such willingness to turn, what a sound it makes, etc. but it just didn't have the, dare I say it... soul? After testing those new bikes I drove home on my (as I now know) rather rare (especially around here) US version of the KZ750L4, the KZ700A1, that somehow made it all the way to Denmark. I have only seen one other A1 around here and I had to search for it in a bike forum (and it wasn't original anymore). And I was gonna chop its tail off or something crazy

I wonder what it is these old cult bikes got that, for some, just make them so much more fun driving? The only regret I have is that I didn't fix the rust properly I found behind the emblem as I'm now likely to be forced to remove the old original paint on the tank..

Anyways, thanks for all the advice I have found in here through the years. I have mostly been lurking but sure have found a lot of knowledge (and almost got a spanking)

Edit: Forgot a photo. Here it is, not original looking anymore but it now is as I want it and nothing has been cut or thrown out.
 

Remember the guy here a few years ago who chopped up an Eddie Lawson KZ1000 to make a "cafe racer"?

It's too bad about your rust problem, but fixable for sure.  I applaud the fact you didn't slash and burn items off your bike.  It looks much better as it came from the Mothership.

Rick H. 

There is something so appealing about the Kz's with the orange/red on black color scheme.  And it really does work best with all of the body parts intact.  As much as I like the red gpz scheme, the orange/red on black is still my favorite.

Oh boy, I know exactly what you’re talking about. I went through something like that with my previous bike, a Ninja 500. Got it in my head that I was gonna do a cafe racer conversion, and even though I made some progress I ultimately just ruined a perfectly good bike. Should have left it alone and just used it to learn to ride. 

I sold that one and bought my Zephyr, and I will never chop it. I could see picking up a bike that’s already been mistreated or wrecked and doing a cafe racer thing to that, but so many bikes get needlessly chopped, and so often look worse than when they started.