THERE’S A GOOD BOY…
No contest. Only the most dogmatic fan of any of the other Big Four J-marques would argue against the belief that Yamaha has always been by some way the most innovative and daring Japanese motorcycle manufacturer in terms of product design. From left-field models that became legends in their lifetime, like the DT-1 Ténéré and RD250/350LC, or the V-Max, of course, and the Ténéré’s much-loved two-valve street-single forerunner, the SR500, right up to the groundbreaking R1/R6 hypersport sisters with which Yamaha reinvented the four-cylinder sportbike class. Or the WR/YZF400 twins with which they then did the same thing off-road, let alone the twin-cylinder TMax XP500 maxi-scooter which also reinvented the twist’n’go category. The house of the tuning forks has a proven track record of innovative response to market trends with cleverly targeted products - some of them directed at niche sectors, others of wider impact.
Of course, sometimes Yamaha’s wilder R&D bets don’t pay off at the box office, as the unloved V4 Royal Star cruiser, the catastrophically unreliable Yamaha XZ550 liquid-cooled V-twin and the gauche-looking hub-centre GTS1000, all proved only too well. But one which did better than expected was its muscular-looking Italian-built BT1100 Bulldog which debuted exactly 20 years ago in the summer of 2002. This was the first Naked Roadster produced by a Japanese manufacturer, albeit developed and built by its Monza-based Belgarda subsidiary at the behest of Yamaha Europe’s product planners in Amsterdam.
The bike was also styled by their in-house Target Design studio.
Indeed, by the time the Bulldog jumped out of its kennels in 2002 the Target Design progettista responsible for its distinctive hunch-backed appearance, Bart Janssen- Groesbeek, had moved to Ducati, where he remained for the next 14 years as Senior Designer. There, among his many creations was the radically revamped
