‘82 Yamaha XZ550

Liquid-cooled twin, four-valve heads, monoshock suspension, airbox flappy valves – Yam's slender middleweight was like an SV650 but 17 years earlier…

Mark Graham

It's 1982 and the Yamaha factory is going full tilt trying to out‑invent and outsell its rivals – going toe-to-toe with Honda, no less. It's a high-risk strategy. 1980 had been good. With domestic sales having doubled from one to two million units over the past five years, the big boss of Yamaha Motor – president Hisao Koike – pledges to increase sales to three million by 1981. And he does. Yamaha is riding high, and four million units becomes the target for 1982. The machine that would help achieve that figure was the XZ550. On paper it was more than a match for the Honda CX500 it was pitched against; a claimed 64bhp playing the CX's 50bhp, from a DOHC, four-valves-per-cylinder, 70°, liquid-cooled V-twin. It featured a vacuum-operated flapper in the…

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BIKE United Kingdom (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2024

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