The two-stroke race-replicas like this Yamaha RZ500 represent a brief, very exciting time in motorcycling. The 1980s were a difficult time for bikes as well as cars: technology was leaping forward while emissions legislation stifled performance at the same time it attempted to save the planet. Eventually, manufacturers would find ways to work within or…
Looking very much like their very desirable VFR750R, the Honda VFR400R shares similar engine configuration, style, and that distinctive “PRO ARM” single-sided swingarm. The sophisticated V4 featured straight-cut gears in place of a chain or belt and drove twin overhead cams. Early VFR400s used a 180° crank, but the NC30 shared it’s 360° “big bang”…
I have some bad news for anyone who lusted after the Yamaha RZV500 when it was new: the bike is now 31 years old. With any luck, you’re aging as well as this V4 two-stroke GP-replica, although I’m sure that varies by individual. And that’s the thing about bikes and bikers this old: even if…
This Japanese-market Yamaha RZV500R is a bit of a double-edged sword: one one hand, the bike came with a lightweight aluminum frame instead of the steel frame found on bikes destined for other markets. But, on the other hand, power output was restricted, down from 88hp to 64. From a pure performance perspective, the ideal…
The popular conception of homologation specials is one of thinly-veiled racebikes, competition bodywork with a couple holes cut in it for headlights, close-ratio gearboxes, and racebike power just a remap/rejet away. The reality is sometimes far less exciting. Sure, the Honda VF1000R may look like an endurance-racing bike with lights, but at a portly 600lbs…
Many of the weird and wonderful bikes we like to feature on this site appear in time-capsule condition, as if Doc Brown put them in a trailer behind his time-traveling DeLorean and towed them from the distant year 1985 into… The future! Others are patched-up wrecks described as having “patina” with “90% tread left on…
Update 8.1.2016: The seller has notified us that this bike has sold. Congratulations to buyer and seller! -dc V4-powered sports motorcycles are all the rage now, but they were long associated with just one manufacturer: Honda. Their homologation RC30 set the standard for “exotic” in the late 1980s and 1990s: V4, gear-driven cams, single-sided swingarms…
Like any market, collector car and bike values can be difficult to predict, which is why they call it “speculating.” Sure, that Anniversary Edition Corvette looks pretty sharp in a giant, plastic wedge kind of way, but will it ever be valuable enough to really justify squirreling away one instead of driving it? The same…
