Yamaha To Go Standard?

YAMAHA TO GO STANDARD?

ROUNDUP

SPORTBIKES NEARLY have become passé in Japan. Now, everything is coming up standards, with three of the Big Four motorcycle manufacturers offering such equipment. And now Yamaha is set to enter the burgeoning retro-standard class with a motorcycle called the XJR400R, producing it in a chassis size that should make it easy to upgrade the bike into a 600or 750-class machine. And in order to cash in on the European and American enthusiasm for horsepower, it is likely that the XJR line eventually will include an XJR1100R, an artist’s conception of which you see here.

Preliminary information leaked out of Japan indicates that the XJR400R is a sportstandard that will be powered by an air-cooled, dohc inlineFour capable of producing 53 horsepower. One source suggests that with the addition of an aftermarket pipe and a jet kit, the little XJR should be capable of about 120 mph-indeed, Yamaha’s design brief reportedly was to field a 400 that would smoke competing bikes from Japan’s other manufacturers.

Yamaha will equip the XJR400R with top-quality hardware, including dual front discs and Öhlins-type shocks. The use of top-shelf equipment means the bike’s price will be high-the equivalent of about $4675 at current exchange rates. If, as seems likely, larger versions of the XJR concept also carry such quality equipment, the Kawasaki ZR1100 and the Honda CB1000 won’t be the only big-bore sportstandards vying for Japanese, European and American buyers.

-Jon F. Thompson