A TROUBLED BIRTH A SHORTER LIFE
‘Logistical complications’ meant that the media lolled around a seaside resort, slurping cocktails and listening to Caribbean music when they should have been riding, or at the very least, gazing upon the latest models from Hamamatsu. As the pickled press was poured on board for the return trip, the bikes arrived on the opposite dock. Oh, well, better late than never.
Of course, this unfortunate event had an eerily familiar ring in the very brief history of Yamaha four stroke twins, for scarcely twelve months prior, many of the same press members had been present at the launch of big brother, the ill-starred TX750, which although fundamentally an excellent motorcycle, was beset with more glitches and gremlins than could be imagined. But Yamaha is nothing if not resilient, and soon after the unfortunate Catalina incident, several running examples of the new half-litre model found their way into the hands of road testers.
Visually, there were many styling cues to the TX750, and even, vaguely, to the now familiar TX650, nee XS1, but the 500 was in fact new from the tyres up. For a start, it marked the company’s first venture intoanother first for Yamaha, at least in motorcycling terms, for Yamaha’s twin cam design had been used by Toyota for a number of racing and sports car engines, and went into production in the form of the Celica GT. The most obvious difference between the 500 and 750 was the use of wet sump lubrication on the smaller engine, whereas the 750 used dry sump.
