Street CRED...
If you like your Japanese classics factory brochure correct and fresh as the proverbial daisy then you just might prefer to skip the following few pages.
Graham Peters’ YCS1C may be structurally pretty damn close to Yamaha’s 1967/68 marketing images and sales pitch but there’s one thing that it isn’t and that’s fresh-faced.
This bike is cosmetically challenged down one side in particular and our guess is that the bike has sat next to a welder’s bench for much of its life. The welding splatter (if that’s what it is) even extends over the speedo glass and trust us, you can’t pick or scrape it off.
You might justifiably ask why on earth we’re even featuring a bike that isn’t pristine or close on but get this; the 180cc twin is a rare survivor of a marketing fad that lasted but six years. Better still, and possibly due to its previous history, it emphatically has not been messed with. This perversely makes it an almost perfectthe rear torque-arm. If you like a machine with patina then this YCS1C has it and in spades. And if you needed another reason, how about this: Graham Peters bought this bike up and running, with NOVA documentation, for less than £700… how much cheaper can classic Japanese motorcycling get people?
