1979 Yamaha RD400 Daytona Special

1979 Yamaha RD400 Daytona Special
Clean – original
4305 miles
VIN 3J7000312
Bid at posting: $11,100 (29 bids)
Reserve not met
5 days until auction ends

Seller
This rare and desirable Canadian 1979 Yamaha RD 400F Daytona Special is a very original classic two stroke motorcycle that has been recently and thoroughly refreshed.

This RD just received all new fluids, new engine seals, new pistons & rings, new clutch plates, new battery, and new tires & tubes. With only 6929 kilometers (4305 miles) on the odometer, this bike is a rare find for collectors and enthusiasts alike.

The white color, paired with the red stripe, provides a unique and vintage look that is sure to turn heads. And who doesn’t love the blue smoke, sound, and smell of a 2 stroke?

It comes with a clean California title and is ready for a new owner to carve some canyons and pop some wheelies. As one of the last 2 stroke street legal models, don’t miss your chance to own this piece of Yamaha history.

RSBFS
This is a great bike. Love the look and the history. It is sure to collect many thumbs up in its future, if the new owner chooses to ride it around town.

Donn covered one of these about a year and a half ago on RSBFS – that specimen had 5,600 miles, many new parts and a rebuilt motor (see post for details), some dings and patina – it sold for $9,300.

8 months ago Mike covered one here on RSBFS that had a mere 30 miles, all original, mint condition. That specimen was listed for $19,500 Buy-it-now and it was not reported if it sold or not.

Mike stated, “The motorcycle world is currently agog with the 400cc class. Earlier this year Kawasaki announced plans to release the 2023 ZX-4RR to American buyers, and comments on these pages and on the RSBFS Facebook page lit up. And while the new ZX-RR harkens back to the gray market middleweights of the 1990s, Yamaha was way ahead of that game with the legendary RD400 two stroke. And no model of the fabled RD line was more iconic than the Daytona Special.”

To round out this post with three examples, we have another RSBFS post by Mike in January of 2022. This particular bike was a showroom display since 1986 with only 3,031 miles and it was not in running order, so it did require some work. It sold for $17,105.

Because I’m a history buff and I love all things vintage, I could not end the post without a reference to a past article. Mitch Boehm wrote 1979 Yamaha RD400 Daytona Special – TWO STROKES! for Motorcyclist Online and stated, “Amazingly, the Daytona wasn’t simply a previous-year RD400 with a flashy new paint job, which you might expect given the two-stroke streetbike’s seemingly dim future in the US. The Special had been thoroughly and expensively revised, almost as if Yamaha planned to keep it in the lineup for a few more years, stringent smog laws notwithstanding. You don’t drop so many yen on a two-year short-term special.

‘It’s funny now,’ says longtime Yamaha product-planning guru Ed Burke, ‘but we didn’t know how long we could keep the RDs going. Every year we’d somehow find a way to keep ahead of [the EPA]. The factory was really good about tweaking the bike every year. We were always back-ordered, and retail sales were phenomenal, in the US, Canada, and overseas. Yamaha wanted to keep it going, as the bike was a mainstay and profitable. Cruisers were the coming thing, but in ’78 there was little fruit there, so the company wanted to keep two-stroke streetbikes alive.'”