1987 Yamaha FZ700
Miles: 25,994
Clean CA Title
$7,000 OBO
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1987 Yamaha FZ700TC Known as the “Tariff Beater”. Rated at 102 hp (for a 700cc engine in 1987!) at 10,500 rpm, with about 60 ft-lbs of torque at 8,000 rpm. Redline was at 11,000. All fluids just changed, new chain & guides, cleaned carbs. Installed new needle and seats. New fork seals. Vance & Hines exhaust. Sounds amazing. Tires are in good condition. Ready to ride or add to your collection. Asking $7000 obo Clean CA Title and currently registered. Receipts and pictures of all work just completed available. Less than 100 miles since bike was completely gone thru.
RSBFS
We have seen a few of these in our 15 years, and Donn explains the Tariff Beater nickname in a RSBFS post from 2016, “1987 brought a trade tariff for motorcycles over 700cc, and Yamaha’s response was to de-stroke their recently designed FZ750 to 697cc’s. Though it had the Genesis 5-valve head, some sporting aspirations were value-engineered out. Still, it was an able street performer and is now very rare.”
Then Donn continues to give us some more details about the bike, “Carrying some interesting design points from the 1985 FZ750, the 700’s straight four is canted well forward to 45 degrees, with the four Mikunis pointed up, and a substantial portion of the fuel load moved down and behind the airbox. This arrangement paid the steel twin-spar center of gravity benefits as well. 38mm forks and rear monoshock were budget conscious, brakes as well with 267mm disks in triplicate. The fairing is lightly updated from 1985 and provides good protection and great looks.”
Reader Micheal J recommends “Back in Play, 1985 Yamaha FZ750” from CycleWorld as a good read.
It is exciting to see the values of these bikes rise. I found a listing here on RSBFS with a similar bike (over 32k. miles) that was going for $3,700 in 2012.
For sure we love the ’80’s!
Good luck to the buyer and seller!
LL
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I had one of the far more common ’85 750’s, but came very close to grabbing one of these later, and I now wish I had.
Was wondering if this FZ would make it to this site. It was originally, and still is, listed on CycleTrader before ebay. Looked for many years for one of these and never found one. As anyone with knowledge of these bikes knows, it was a one year only model. Still hope to find one or the 750 version with lower mileage. Price seems a little high especially for the mileage and the pictures leave a lot to be desired. Looking at the grass and red paint, seems like the images were “brightened” and also grainy. Bike needs detailing, for sure. They may get their price, though, as there are so few listed these days.
Sorry, but I like the ’85 model best, ’86 next. They show off the beautiful Yamaha Genisis engine. I still think these are much more advanced than the same year GSXR’s. For some reason I rarely see an ’85 or ’86 for sale. The last decent one I saw was on ebay, it sold for North of $10K.
@jess I remember that bike. It was actually on this site too. It had just under 1600 miles and think it sold for over 11K. The seller had announced beforehand he was going to list it on ebay in a post on a facebook group dedicated to the Yamaha FZ700, FZ750, FZX and Fazer. He stated he wanted about 11K but members were telling him he wouldn’t get it…too much. Well, he got it. Nicest one I’ve seen.
I owned this bikes ugly brother the fz700 fazer. I bought that bike because i used to shop ebay for the lowest price running bike i could find. The adventure then was an airplane ride. A cab ride then try and ride back home successfully. The fazer i got ran, just barely. The 2 exhaust headers crarcked in half. Very loud, i managed to ride several hundled miles home.
what impressed me was how winderful the motor was. I had owned a crb600f3 from new a 5 years earlier. The yamaha motor was midrangy an useable. Soo smooth too. What a jem. The rest of the power cruiser bike s adumpster fire but hey, what can you expect for $700!
point is that motor always made me crave a go on a twisty road on its sportbike brother. I’ve no doubt even a bike this old is still a high velocity peach. Would love to try it.
about this bike, my only nitpick is the bodywork. It looks like it was replaced with fiberglass. Che the picks. Probably from airtech given the age. Maybe you care, maybe you don’t. Price would affect how much I care. And some times, with something this old and rare, just keeping it a survivor is what really counts.
If this bike got your interest, go over to cycleworld and pull up Nick Ienatch’s article from about a decade ago. After reading this post, I landed over on that one “Back in Play: 1985 Yamaha FZ750”good read…
@Michael – thanks for the recommendation. Just added this reference to the post.
@Michael – This game you played might be something fun to organize as a competition… You get points for the lowest price, points for the most miles ridden back home, points for the least amount of money invested in order to get the bike home…. this has me thinking.
Yeah, sounds like a Zack and Ari episode. Game is played on youtube. You have one year to post your accomplishment. I have 3 bike I like to play to do my searches for. Kawasaki w650, honda vfr750, ducati 907ie. Honda nx250 and Yamaha gts1000 are other flights of fancy.
I see the seller lowered the price on their CycleTrader ad to $5900. If it gets down to $4K, I’m on it.