Yamaha Midnight Star

YAMAHA MIDNIGHT STAR

Quick Ride

Shedding light on the Dark Star

JUST WHAT IS IN the water-cooler over at Yamaha? Lately, these cats can do no wrong. R1 and R6 sportbikes? Tape-measure home runs. YZ-F moto-Thumpers? Two more dingers. And after a so-so showing with the retro Royal Star V-Four, Yammie crunched another one into the cheap seats with the Road Star V-Twin, maybe the best of the "metric" megacruisers (apologies to Kawasaki's Vulcan 1500).

Now comes a little line refinement, the limitededition Midnight Star, which gilds the basic Road Star package with a chrome-plated fork (shrouds and legs), blacked-out engine highlighted by polished fins, and that padded piece de resistance, a studded seat. Available (duh...) in black only, expect to pay a $600 premium for all this mono chromatic exclusivity, for a suggested retail of $11,799.

Mechanically, this is the same setup as before, heart of the mat ter being a charismatic 1602cc V-Twin with air-cooled jugs and gleaming pushrod tubes just like God intended. Horsepower ain’t anything to get all exercised about (52 bhp at the rear wheel), but this thing’s got torque out the patootie, a stump-pulling 85 foot-pounds of the stuff (for comparison, a good-running Twin Cam Harley might make 75 ft.-lbs.). Short-shifting is the name of the game, a good thing ’cause the rev limiter kicks in just north of 4500 rpm. Spot-on carburetion results in glitch-free roll-ons, even from ridiculously low rpm.

Sadly, Yamaha didn’t take this opportunity to clean up the cluttered left side of the engine. All those tubes and rods and covers get in the way of what is arguably the best-looking big Vee ever to thumpety-thump a set of coffee-can pistons.

Nice brakes for a cruiser, double discs up front, and backroad prowess is better than average, though Ricky Racer types will make a mess of the floorboards. At least said floorboards are perfectly placed for cruising, as is the seat and pullback handlebar. There’s a minimum of that “sheet-in-the-wind” effect after a long ride, though cross-country stalwarts will want to fit a windscreen, especially if 70-mph-plus jaunts are on the agenda.

All in all, then, an entertaining, well-priced ride for fans of the fat-fendered yester-cruiser. Very little to complain about here. But as our cover stories this month suggest, there’s a shift occurring in the cruiser landscape-away from “retro” and toward “hot-rod.” Honda’s VTX1800 doubles the Star’s horsepower, as will the upcoming liquid-cooled Harley. Others are in the pipeline. In fact, as on their game as the product planners at Yamaha have been, we wouldn’t be at all surprised if Team Y had a nasty little streetrod ready to roll.

All of which begs the question, what comes after Midnight?

David Edwards