Yamaha motorcycles are frequently used as donors for restomod builds because they strike a rare balance between classic styling, robust engineering, and performance-oriented design. Models like the XS650, SR400/500, vintage RD two-strokes, FZ and XJ models, and even now early YZF sport bikes provide builders with engines and frames that respond well to modern upgrades. Yamaha’s long history of sporting development means many of these platforms already feature strong crankcases, capable cylinder heads, and well-proportioned chassis that can be refreshed with contemporary suspension, brakes, wheels, and electronics while preserving their original identity.
Yamahas also appeal to restomod builders because of their versatility and aftermarket depth. Parts availability is excellent, tuning knowledge is widespread, and many Yamaha engines accept modern fuel injection, ignition systems, and improved cooling with relatively little drama. Whether the goal is a subtle modernization or a full performance-focused reinterpretation, Yamaha-based restomods tend to retain a lively, engaging character that reflects the brand’s racing DNA. The end result is often a motorcycle that honors its era visually while delivering sharper handling, stronger braking, and everyday reliability by modern standards.
Ténéré Runner: Yamaha XTZ750 Super Ténere - ’89 Yamaha XTZ750 “Ténéré Runner” from BCK Motorcycles… In 1989, Yamaha released their latest desert racer clone, the Yamaha XTZ750 Super Ténere. Styled after the company’s Paris Dakar race bikes, the Super Ten boasted […]
Desert Storm: Yamaha Super Ténéré 750 - BIKE Factory resurrects a wrecked Super Ten… Back in 1989, Yamaha introduced a Paris Dakar-inspired adventure bike, the XTZ750 Super Ténéré. The Super Ten’s engine was a 749cc liquid-cooled parallel-twin with five valves per cylinder […]
Unique Classic: Yamaha TT500 Restomod - For most of the late 60s and early 70s, two-strokes dominated the off-road market. They were lighter, faster, and simpler than their four-stroke counterparts, and thumper evolution had all but stalled since the British singles […]
Retro Enduro: Yamaha WR250F Restomod - Gauloises Blondes Edition Yamaha 250 from Holy Moly Motorcycles… The Yamaha WR250F is the off-road / enduro version of the company’s YZ250F motocross bike. In other words, it’s a high-performance trail bike — a race […]
Restomod Racer: Yamaha “YZF R1-7 OW-02” - R7-inspired Restomod Race Bike from DV8 Motorcycles… The late 1980s and early 1990s were heady times for superbike fans. In order to meet the production rules of series like World Superbike and AMA Superbike, manufacturers […]
County Carver: Yamaha FZR750 Genesis - From €150 Donor to Endurance-Style 90s Restomod… Jonny Kerins (@jfk_bikes) of Ireland’s County Meath builds and restores bikes out of an old milking parlor on his 1950s farm. His love for sport bikes goes back […]
Handbuilt Star: Aluminum-Clad Yamaha TX750 - As Seen at Handbuilt: Ronnie George’s Yamaha 750 Stunner… Only available for a short time in the 1970s, the Yamaha TX750 remains a relatively rare and obscure model. At the time, Yamaha already had the […]
Sonauto Edition: Yamaha XTZ750 Super Ténéré - Dakar-inspired Super Ténéré 750 from BIKE Factory… In 1947, famed French racing driver Toto Veuillet founded Saône-Auto (Sonauto), which would become France’s first importer of Porsche cars and Yamaha motorcycles. Sonauto was involved in many […]
Giant-Slayer: 500cc Yamaha RD350 YPVS Restomod - Bolt Motor Co. builds a 500cc weapon… The Yamaha RD350 is one of the most iconic sporting motorcycles ever produced. The original air-cooled 350cc two-stroke parallel-twin was produced from 1973-1975, and the RD quickly became […]
TÜV Approved: Yamaha SR500 Roadster / Scrambler - Workshop43 rescues a neglected classic… The Yamaha SR400 and SR500 were street-centric versions of the company’s 500cc TT/XT enduro bikes, which gained fame in the great African rallies of the late 70s. But their […]
Chem Trails: Yamaha RD400 Street Tracker - A Smokin’ Two-Stroke Tracker from DubStyle Designs… There are workshops who turn out a kaleidoscopic range of custom bikes, always experimenting with a style or era or make they haven’t yet explored, often at […]
A-SPEC: Liquid-cooled Yamaha RD400 Café Racer - Armen Spec: Yamaha RD400(LC) from Armen Manougian… One of the bikes that stood out most to us at the 2024 Handbuilt Show was this stunning Yamaha RD400 from our new friend Armen Manougian — a […]
Electric Boogie: Yamaha XT500 Restomod - Electric Start, Air-Cooled: Motogadgets’ 1980 Yamaha XT500… By the early 1970s, the big single-cylinder four-stroke off-roader was thought a species all but extinct. After all, the great British 500 singles like the BSA B50 […]
La Bastarda: Yamaha XT550 Restomod Scrambler - In 1982, Yamaha released the XT550 as the next evolution of their four-stroke dual-purpose single-cylinder motorcycle. The 550 had big shoes to fill, as the XT500 it replaced was a multi-time winner of the Paris […]
Torakusu XT: Yamaha XT500 Street Tracker - Jean-Michel Atlan’s street tracker, reimagined 40 years later… In 1877, Japanese entrepreneur Torakusu Yamaha, the third son of a samurai of the Kishu-Tokugawa family, founded Nippon Gakki Company in order to manufacturer reed organs. Torakusu’s […]
Smoky Runner: Yamaha DT125R Restomod - BCKustoms returns to his two-stroke roots… The original Yamaha DT-1 250 Enduro and the long line of successors it spawned remain some of the most popular, influential motorcycles to come out of the 1960s. Here […]
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 […]
Yamaha SR400 “Café Scrambler” - In 2021, Yamaha ended the incredible 43-year production run of the SR400 — a bike that’s remained remarkably unchanged through those four decades of production. Introduced to the Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) back in 1978, […]
Viva Vinduro! Yamaha DT400 Restomod - Purpose Built Moto builds a two-stroke ripper… The Yamaha DT400 is one of our favorite two-stroke enduros of the 1970s — a wolf in wolf’s clothing and a howling fury to ride. The factory bike […]
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 […]
Yellow Hornet: Yamaha RZ350 Hybrid / Restomod - For Sale: 1983 Hybrid RZ350… The Yamaha RZ350 was one of the last, most advanced two-stroke street bikes of all time, incorporating decades of two-stroke research and development. Known as the RD350 YPVS in the […]
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 […]
BA Special: 1985 Yamaha RZ350 Restomod - Bald Anthony builds one bad RZ… The Yamaha RZ350 was the ultimate, most modern two-stroke street bike sold in the United States. The liquid-cooled two-stroke, rubber-mounted parallel twin was rated at 52 bhp, and equipped […]
Never Underestimate an RD: Yamaha RD350 Restomod - “Don’t let anyone work on your bike who wasn’t born before it was made.” That’s the motto of Charlie Medeiros of ForPlay Racing — a garage-based repair and restoration shop in Los Gatos, California, specializing […]
From Romania With Love: Yamaha XS650 “Violet” - Parts donor to reborn roadster, with Romania’s Bandisca… The Yamaha XS650 is one of our favorite vintage Japanese motorcycles. Sometimes known, tongue in cheek, as the “greatest British bike never built,” the straight-twin machine combined […]
Two-Stroke Gold: Yamaha CT175 Restomod - Drake Speed transforms a farm wreck into CT3 street ripper… The Yamaha CT was the company’s series of 175cc two-stroke enduros, introduced in 1969 and renamed the DT175 in 1974. Here at BikeBound HQ, we’ve […]
Blue Smoke: Yamaha RD350LC Hybrid - Andy Underhill’s resto-modded RD350, boasting YPVS power… Introduced in 1980, the Yamaha RD350LC was the next evolution in two-stroke street performance. Though it succeeded the larger displacement air-cooled RD400, the LC — aka the “Elsie” […]
Street Thumper: Yamaha SR400 Restomod Roadster - DOTi builds another single-cylinder roadster… The Yamaha SR400 has become a cult classic in many parts of the world — a short-stroke thumper derived from the legendary Yamaha XT500. Introduced in 1978, the SR was […]
Aberg Tribute: Yamaha HL500 Restomod - Se7en Six Collective builds a fitting tribute to the late Bengt Aberg… In 1975, Yamaha introduced the single-cylinder four-stroke XT500, a dual-purpose “enduro-adventure” motorcycle that would win the first two Paris-Dakar Rallies and lay the […]
Restomod Thumper: Yamaha SR400 by DOTi Motorcycle - JDM Motard: A big single streetbike from Vietnam… The Yamaha SR400 has been available in the Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) since 1978, originally developed as a street-oriented spinoff of the legendary XT500 enduro. To comply […]
Orange Crush: Yamaha RD350LC Hybrid - Dusty Miller builds an electric orange giant-killer… The Yamaha RD350LC was the first liquid-cooled evolution of the RD series, which appeared in 1980 to succeed the air-cooled RD400. It had the same bore and stroke […]
White Heat: Yamaha RD400 Hybrid - Retired firefighter Dusty Miller builds one hot RD! In 1975, the Yamaha RD400 appeared as the evolution of the RD350, featuring 51cc more displacement, new cases/barrels/head, a new airbox design, and a rubber-mounted engine. “The […]
Box of Dynamite: Yamaha RD465LC Restomod - A modernized “Elsie” with a dyno-proven 103.7 bhp! The Yamaha RD350LC was the successor of the RD400, featuring the same bore and stroke as the original air-cooled RD350 (64x54mm) but with liquid cooling and a […]
Ultimate RD: Yamaha RD400 Restomod - An 80-bhp Harris/Mark Dent RD400 Special… Introduced in 1975 to replace the RD350, the Yamaha RD400 would quickly become the alpha wolf of the late 70s sport middleweights, producing ~40 horsepower at 7000 rpm. Front […]
Yamaha TT500 VMX by Beeton Fabrications - An HL500-inspired vintage motocross racer from Down Under… It may seem hard to believe today, but by the mid-1970s, the four-stroke thumpers that once ruled the dirt were all but dead. Both BSA and Matchless […]
Bullet Bob Moto: IT200 Supermoto x Dirt Twins - Team Bullet Bob Moto builds a pair of vintage two-stroke tarmac x dirt weapons… By the mid-1970s, the Yamaha had revolutionized motorcycling with their dual-purpose DT series — a range of lightweight, affordable, low-maintenance motorcycles […]
Dirt Road Ripper: Yamaha XT500 by MotoRelic - “Foot down and elbows up! Braaap!” The Yamaha XT500 is one of the most successful dual-purpose machines of all time, a big-bore four-stroke that proved itself in professional desert racing and on thousands of miles […]
Hot Rod Enduro: The Motorieep 590TT - The Yamaha TT600RE was an air-cooled, street-legal enduro available from 2003-2007, featuring a 42-hp engine, electric start, and dual-stage carburetion. The engine was essentially an XT600 unit, highly praised for its toughness and torque: “The […]
“W-Max”: Yamaha V-Max Restomod by Nitro Cycles - This isn’t the gun…it’s the bullet… The Yamaha V-Max is one of the greatest muscle bikes in history. At its introduction in 1984, it was the fastest-accelerating production motorcycle ever made, a 600-pound beast capable […]
Ideal RD: Yamaha “RD380” YPVS Café Racer - The ideal RD, built by the man who wrote the book on Yamaha Two-Strokes… The Yamaha RD350 YPVS type 31 — sold in the US as the Yamaha RZ350 — was one of the most […]
Evil Restomod: Yamaha RZ392 - Evil RZ: “It is a pure bred giant-killer, not for the faint of heart…” The Yamaha RZ350 was one of the last, great 2-stroke street bikes available in the USA. The ~50 horsepower parallel twin […]
Yamaha RZ350 Restomod - “When you downshift, people look around like the antichrist just landed…” The Yamaha RZ350 was one of the most modern two-stroke street bikes ever sold in North America. It had triple disc brakes, 18-inch wheels, oil […]
Yamaha RD400 Resto-Mod by Atlanta Motorcycle Works - “To go fast and not die, to smoke and not be broke, to stand the front wheel up at 12 o’clock, but still get you home after a long hot day of riding twisties.” That […]
Yamaha RZ350 Restomod by Keith Carlson - Dragon Slayer: 2-stroke weapon built for the Tail of the Dragon… Indiana’s Keith Carlson, who specializes in two-stroke builds, is one of our very favorite builders. Each year, Keith and his friend Steve Hoy of […]
Yamaha RZ350 “Lab Rat” by Swinndustries - The Lab Rat – a modern two-stroke screamer… The RZ350 was the final evolution of Yamaha’s two-stroke RD series street bikes — a liquid-cooled, dual-carb street weapon with 60 horsepower on tap, a wild powerband, […]
Yamaha XS850 Restomod by Brick House Builds - “Triple Trouble”…a three-cylinder Yamaha with modern upgrades… One of our favorite young builders in the country — nay, the world — is Bj English of Missouri’s Brick House Builds. Bj has a penchant for building […]
Yamaha SR250 Restomod by Jadus - Jake Snowdon is a mechanical engineer living in Malmö, Sweden, who started his company, Jadus Motorcycle Parts, designing and producing a range of high-quality custom parts for specific models like the Yamaha SR250. Jake loves […]
