“A vintage race bike without fairings…but for the street.” This was the vision Jesse Crane (@crane_moto) had for the 1975 Yamaha RD350 café racer you see here. You might remember Jesse from his ’71 Yamaha […]
Tag: Yamaha RD
For You, Old Fox: Yamaha RD350 Custom
Cus’Tom Motorcycles rebuilds his father’s RD… The Yamaha RD350 was one of the great giant-killers of the two-wheeled world, a two-stroke street machine with a race-bred bloodline. In AMA Class C racing, the RD racers […]
40th Anniversary Edition: 2023 Yamaha RZ350!
What if Yamaha and Bimota teamed up to build a 40th anniversary RZ350? That’s the question San Francisco-based engineer and road racer Julian Farnam asked himself. Of course, that would entail combining the legendary liquid-cooled, […]
Rolling Art: Yamaha RD400 Street Tracker
Gaston Motorcycle Werks builds a two-stroke street tracker… Introduced in 1976, the Yamaha RD400 was the last of Yamaha’s air-cooled two-stroke RD street bikes, a blue-smoking wheelie monster that undercut many of its rivals pricewise […]
The Mutant: 421cc Two-Stroke Skorpion!
Vic Shield’s RZ421-Powered MZ Skorpion! In 1994, former East German motorcycle maker MuZ — aka MZ — introduced the Skorpion, a single-cylinder sport bike with a race-style chassis and 660cc Yamaha engine. This crossbred machine […]
Cheetah Cub: Yamaha RD421LC Restomod / Hybrid
Colin White’s 421cc Cheetah Cub LC… In 1980, Yamaha introduced the RD350LC (Liquid Cooled) as the successor to the air-cooled RD400, along with a 250cc version aimed at the British learners’ market. The “Elsie” quickly […]
Scary Fun: Yamaha RD400 Café Racer
Two-Stroke Smoker from Hawai’i’s Speedychoppy Builds… In 1976, the Yamaha RD400 appeared as the successor to the RD350, which had become a legend in its own time. Instead of simply overboring the 350, Yamaha created […]
Gulf Special: Yamaha RD350 YPVS F2 Café Racer
Bolt Motor Co. builds a stunning two-stroker… At its unveiling in 1982, the Yamaha RD350 YPVS — known as the RZ350 in North America — was called “the nearest thing to a road going racer […]
Ultimate Two-Stroke: 421cc NSR-D Project!
110-hp, 240-lb NSR-RD Hybrid… The Honda NSR250R remains one of the most legendary bikes of the 1990s, a street-legal two-stroke weapon built in the image of Honda’s 250cc Grand Prix racers. Along with the Suzuki […]
Two-Stroke Giant-Killer: Yamaha RD443LC Hybrid
Mark Goulding builds one wicked “Elsie”… In 1980, the Yamaha RD250LC arrived, a liquid-cooled 247cc / 35-bhp two-stroke street machine destined to become one of motorcycling’s great hooligan machines. In the UK, the “Elsie” satisfied […]