We're going to be honest here, the press package shots for the Yamaha Sakura didn't really get us in a huff. Something in them felt inauthentic, contrived even. I imagined a rocket designer complaining about doing a design only his grandpa would drive. In person, that's just not the case. This is a very handsome bike.…
Report: New Toyota Minicar to Get Yamaha Motorcycle Engine
Make way for the anonymous sources bearing gifts. Automotive News reports Toyota will power its IQ microcar with an engine from Yamaha. That from unnamed company executives. Toyota's not volunteering any information on the powertrain selected for a production version of the minicar concept, which showed up in Frankfurt …
V-Twin, And Then Some: Yamaha Tesseract Concept 2
Among the design concepts set for a bow in Tokyo later this month is this quad spectacle. It's the Yamaha Tesseract Concept, and it shows what can be done when a team of mechanical engineers lock themselves in an antechamber built during the feudal Azuchi-Momoyama period, with nothing to eat but miso soup and grilled…
1991 Taurus SHO
While trolling the aisles at my local self-service junkyard a while back, I caught a glimpse of a really cool-looking engine in my peripheral vision. "Whoa! What was that?" I thought, backtracking to take a look. And whaddya know, it was a good ol' early-90s Taurus SHO.
James May's Turgid Adolescent Dream: The Yammy Fizzie!
When I was a young NorCal proto-hoon yearning for my first set of internal-combustion wheels, my peers and I figured a clean 350 Chevelle was the best we could reasonably hope for, and a fine aspiration that was. Over in the UK, however, our English counterparts were jonesing for Yamaha FS1-E sports mopeds as their…
Ploof: A Yamaha Scooter Prototype
Transportation design student Axel Dichamp dubbed this dadaesque scooter prototype "Ploof," which could be an onomatopoeic approximation of the sound made when its image smacks against the optic nerve. Dichamp's idea was to create a Yamaha two-wheeler for adult consumers concerned with comfort. The result is a…
Go Go Goggomobil!: Bike Engines in Old European Cars Redux
We've said it before and we'll say it again: Swapping superbike engines into weird, little European cars makes us giddier than the Ladies Auxiliary on casserole night. This time, the car is a Goggomobil and the engine is from a Yamaha FZR1000. The Gogglomobil, about as well known on these shores as the collected works …
The Lowdown: Phueled Type 1
Whither the mad inventors? Right hither. Part motorcycle, part four-wheeler, the Type 1 prototype was influenced by Star Wars speeder bikes, Japanese manga and Elf enclosed-motorcycle prototypes of the 1990s. Its builder, an automotive engineer, set out seven years ago to create a new automotive construct for urban…
