A Star Is Re-Born
A STAR IS RE-BORN
ROUNDUP
SO, TOYOTA IS TO Lexus as Yamaha is to...Star? Not quite, but starting with the 2006 model year, Yamaha’s cruiser lineup will be its own entity, marketed under the Star Motorcycles banner.
Flagship for the new division will be the Roadliner, a heavily stylized art-deco riff on the standard V-Twin Ameri-cruiser theme.
Why, in a year when Yamaha is celebrating its 50th anniversary, the change of direction?
“The Star brand has been around since 1995 and the introduction of the Royal Star V-Four,” says Bob Starr, corporate communications manager. “It’s grown significantly in the past 10 years, accounting for roughly 60 percent of Yamaha’s streetbike sales. We think it now has the legs to stand on its own, to be its own brand.”
Others are more blunt. “Let’s make it look, sound and smell less Japanese and more American,” is how one dealer CW spoke to saw it, though he wondered if the move was really necessary. “The Yamaha name already carries a lot of value with customers,” he noted. “And just like when Coca-Cola introduces a new brand, it’s going to take a lot of money to launch the name properly.”
Yamaha is aware of that and already has a Star-specific website set up (www.star motorcycles.com). In addition, current television commercials have been subtly edited to pump up the Star nameplate and downplay Yamaha’s ownership. Next comes all-new TV spots and magazine ads. At rallies and demo rides, Star will have its own tents and trucks. Star models (650 and 1100 V-Star, Road Star, Warrior and Royal Star) will be sold alongside Yamahas in dealerships, and will still carry company badges, albeit discreetly-a prototype Roadliner had a small tuning-fork emblem set into the speedometer face and a 2-inch Yamaha logo on the rear fender.
“Yeah, we want to distance Star from the parent company, while taking advantage of Yamaha’s 50 years of engineering excellence,” says Starr. “We see the brand as more of a lifestyle choice.”
Style seems the operative word regarding the Roadliner. Its design was initiated by Ed Burke, since retired from Yamaha, a man enamored with the streamlined styling of 1930s cars, planes and trains. It was Burke who was among the first to recognize the appeal of cruiser-style motorcycles back in 1978 when he came up with the XS650 Specials. Signature items on the Roadliner include a headlight nacelle that might be piloted by Buck Rogers, a brace of sweeping chrome tank strips and a tanktop instrument panel that looks like an enlarged version of a vintage Hamilton wristwatch.
Beneath all the retro-bling is a single-shock aluminum frame based on the Road Star Warrior’s, so the ’Liner should have above-average backroad chops, though at a claimed 705 pounds it’s no lightweight. Special to the new bike is a bored-andstroked version of the aircooled, pushrod Road Star VTwin bumped from 102 cubic inches to 113 cubes (1854cc) and fitted with an EXUP valve in the exhaust system, a first for a Yamaha-er, sorryStar cruiser. -David Edwards
