Kawasaki US Manufacturing Is Much More Than Powersports: Plant Tour With Stone Cold Steve Austin

When I got invited to tour the Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing Corporation (KMM), I was excited; I love factory tours. But I’ll be honest: Lincoln, Neb., isn’t known to be the most exciting of destinations, especially in February.

My invite promised I’d meet former pro wrestler, Kawasaki spokesperson, and UTV racer Stone Cold Steve Austin. As Stone Cold famously says, “Oh hell, yeah.” Now I was really looking forward to Lincoln.

A Manufacturing First in the USA

In 1974, Kawasaki became the first foreign vehicle manufacturer to have an assembly plant on U.S. soil. What started as a relatively small factory has expanded to 2.6 million square feet with 3,000 workers. The company’s well-known ATVs and UTVs come out of this factory, but there’s a lot more going on here than I expected.

A Long Manufacturing History

KMM’s parent company, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, was founded in Japan in 1896 in the shipbuilding business. Perhaps best known globally for its motorcycles, such as the Ninja, Vulcan, and KLR, the company makes a wide variety of products.

These includes trains (such as the Shinkansen bullet train), aircraft, defense, and aerospace products. Need a helicopter, bulldozer, or manufacturing robot? They do that, too.

So, what comes out of this factory in the center of America’s heartland?

The Lincoln Facility

There are four main products manufactured at the Lincoln, Neb., facility: ATVs, UTVs (aka side-by-sides), rail cars, and cargo doors for Boeing’s 777X. I had no idea Kawasaki built the last two, let alone in Nebraska.

All Kawasaki ATVs and UTVs are made in Lincoln, with the 2011 Kawasaki Teryx 4 750 being the first KMM vehicle fully designed and developed in the USA. While North America is the largest market for Kawasaki powersports products, KMM exports to 143 countries, all originating from Nebraska.

This factory takes raw steel and turns it into finished goods. Many of these materials are shaped and formed using Kawasaki robotics, too. From tube bending and welding, to the manufacture of its own steel wheels — there’s a lot going on here.

Welding & Quality Checks

We began our tour by seeing how UTV frames were manufactured. Bins of square steel stock get cut and shaped, and then put into welding fixtures for robotic and then manual welding.

Tyler Furman, Deputy Director, Research & Development and Cost Planning for KMM, noted that despite robotic and automation activity, KMM has never displaced human workers with robots.

Once that frame is welded, it gets inspected. One of many rigorous quality inspections during the manufacturing process.

The company uses numerous lean manufacturing processes. The assembly lines all use things like kanban, andon, poka-yoke, and other principles that help keep quality tight and production humming along smoothly. On the tour, it was evident that Kawasaki has a strong emphasis on quality and precision.

Lots of In-House Operations

One thing struck me: There was a lot of manufacturing done in-house instead of relying on suppliers. Furman says it keeps the quality up and costs down.

We got to see many parts of the UTV manufacturing process. This includes the 18-stage e-coating area that fully submerges a Ridge UTV’s entire frame to prevent rust, even on the inside of chassis tubes.

We saw the 3,000-ton Mitsubishi injection molding machine. It cranks out plastic hoods and fenders, roofs and grilles in a variety of colors, with each piece’s mold weighing 32,000 pounds.

These injection-molded parts rarely get painted. Instead, about 70% of these parts are molded in the desired color, complete with a high-gloss sheen if wanted. Then the parts are sent off for finishing, all in-house.

Tube benders (using Kawasaki robots) bend metal for things like roll bars to a 1mm tolerance. And yes, that spec is checked multiple times during the day during all three shifts, which run 5 days a week.

The steel wheel station cranks out around 400 wheels a day, although it has been as high as 11,000 — yes, a day.

We witnessed the hydro dipping process, which applies graphics to certain models. Hydro dipping occurs where a pattern printed on a cornstarch film is laid on top of a water bath. A spray dissolves the cornstarch, leaving the printed portion floating on the water.

A part, such as a hood, is dipped into the water, the pattern sticks, the hood dries, and then it’s clear-coated. If you’ve ever seen a camouflage pattern on a UTV, this is usually how it’s done.

A finished Kawasaki UTV can have as many as 16,000 SKUs. To handle this, the company has a sophisticated warehouse of parts. There are semi-automated parts pickers, forklifts, and a fleet of parts people whizzing around the plant getting items to where they need to be. It’s very impressive.

While KMM doesn’t cast its own engine and transmission parts in Nebraska, they are done by Kawasaki in Japan and shipped to Nebraska. All this continues to ensure quality. And each year, the plant is producing around 70,000–80,000 UTVs.

Not Just Powersports Products

Before visiting KMM, I had no idea that anything other than powersports vehicles was being produced here. As previously mentioned, this factory also makes passenger rail cars and aerospace parts.

On the rail side, the company manufactures passenger rail cars for places like New York City, Washington, D.C., and Delaware public transit. As of 2025, Kawasaki has made 3,500 rail cars, some weighing as much as 200 tons and costing between $2 million and $5 million each. They’re built to customer spec, and KMM even has its own rail test area on site.

The manufacturing area is neat, tidy, and spacious. Cars are moved around on pneumatic carts that allow one person to move 200-ton train cars, which is incredible.

Then there’s the company’s aerospace area. Here, employees build cargo doors for the Boeing 777X. There is a massive $15-million riveting machine, doors in various states of assembly, and massive carts on in-floor rails that can be moved to accommodate production of these large items.

KMM builds six doors a month, matching Boeing’s fabrication of three planes a month. Aerospace isn’t new to the company. In fact, Kawasaki Aircraft Industries was one of Japan’s first aircraft companies, originally founded in 1918.

After seeing all that goes on at Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing Corporation, I’m here to tell you: there’s a lot going on in Lincoln.

Stone Cold Steve Austin + Kawasaki Racing

“Stone Cold” Steve Austin was one of the biggest names in professional wrestling until his retirement from the ring in 2022. With his muscular build and well-known catchphrases, Austin became a cultural icon. He’s also a Kawasaki spokesperson and UTV Racer, and has been involved with KMM since 2015. In 2023, Stone Cold got involved in UTV racing.

I rode with Stone Cold in a 2026 Kawasaki Ridge UTV on the KMM test track. I asked how he got involved with racing. He said after a UTV poker run, someone called him and asked if he’d like to get into racing. “I said, ‘Yeah man, I’d love to.’”  He hopped in a Teryx KRX 1000 and started his racing endeavors.

From Racing Rookie to VORRA Champ

Austin stated he “was green as grass” when he started racing, despite driving and riding powersports vehicles for years. “My first side-by-side was a ’98 Kawasaki Mule four-seater that went about 20 mph,” he said, talking about how he used it for work on his ranch.

He says he’s not the fastest guy on the course, and that there are kids much younger (Austin is now 61) who grew up doing this. “I know where I’m at,” he says.

However, Austin is humble. He won the 2024 Valley Off Road Racing Association (VORRA) championship in the Sportsman UTV class. He’s since added experience to his racing résumé, including an appearance at the grueling Mint 400 in 2025, where he competed and was also the Grand Marshall. For 2026, he’s building a new stock-mod UTV and headed back to the track.

Wrestling vs. Racing

Austin said there are similarities between pro wrestling and racing, especially starting out. “The number one mistake when someone gets into pro wrestling is that they’re working too fast. You want to ‘go, go, go’ because you’re trying to get that crowd to do something, trying to move the needle. But you have to tell the rookie to slow down, learn.”

He said at some point, he made the correlation that you’ve got to crawl before you learn to walk. “It’s the same with racing,” Austin said. “In your first race, don’t even try to win, just ride the course; just finish.”

He said even if you’re just back there lollygagging, you still could end up on a podium. “In a war of attrition, if everyone else breaks down, you got a chance to win it.”

Austin’s racing goal? “Keep racing; keep enjoying it.”

There’s a Lot Going On in Lincoln

After my visit to the KMM factory, I kept thinking, there’s a lot going on in Lincoln. There’s an army of dedicated workers, products being exported globally, and much more than just ATVs and UTVs. This is a global business with a U.S. headquarters in the heartland. I met many workers who’d been employed there 10+ years, some of whom worked there more than 20 years.

I drove a 2026 Kawasaki Ridge on the test track and experienced the product firsthand. The company is innovating and creating work vehicles, like the Mule, and pushing boundaries with “play” vehicles like the Teryx H2 models.

Those Teryx models have 250 horsepower, 24 inches of suspension travel, and a supercharger moving 57 gallons of air per second. The brand, which pioneered the UTV market with the Mule, currently offers the most powerful UTV on the market.

This tour opened my eyes to Kawasaki’s breadth and diversity of product offerings. I’ll never think of the brand, or Lincoln, Neb., the same way.

As Stone Cold Steve Austin would say, “And that’s the bottom line.”