Double Header – 1992 Yamaha TZR250R 3XV

If yesterday’s ’91 model year TZR250 in the muted grey colors didn’t quite get your motor running, how about a fresh-from-Japan ’92 model year in the bright and cheery white/red livery? This is a bike that looks like it is going fast even when it isn’t, and as a 250cc v-twin two stroke pushing a…

Napoleon Dynamite – 1984 Yamaha RD500LC

Unlike the geeky and ungainly title character who comes good at the end (#spoileralert), the Yamaha RD500LC has never been anything but cool. The Japanese interpretation of what a street-going, 500cc two-stroke GP machine should be, today’s example appears to have played around in France before being imported into the US and going through a…

Re-Californication: 1984 Yamaha RZ350

The Yamaha RZ350 was the last of the federally imported two strokes into the EPA-heavy state of California. With precise oil injection, the Yamaha Power Valve System (YPVS) to maximize efficiency, and air-injection and catalytic converters in the exhaust stream, this was the cleanest factory smoker on the planet in 1984. Sadly this was not…