Two Stroke Glory Days: 1980 Yamaha TZ500H
Ah, the days of the customer race bike. How times have changed. Two strokes have been killed, customer race bikes are a thing of the past and racing, well is hurting. I know the economy has put a hurt on everything but I think some of the decisions made in the not to distant past have combined to slowly but surely hurt racing. Let me climb off my soapbox now and have look at what we have here.
You don’t see a TZ500 everyday! This was Yamaha’s answer to Suzuki’s RGB500’s that had quite a bit of success back in the late 70’s and early 80’s. This particular bike has had a restoration (how complete I don’t know). It looks to have been painted to replicate the bike Barry Sheene rode in 1980. This is where it gets a bit confusing. It is advertised as Barry Sheene’s Team Akai TZ500H (is it a bad sign they misspelled “Sheene” in the ad?). From what I can gather, Sheene rode full works Yamaha back in 1980. So, I’m not sure if this a replica or a bike Sheene rode in some capacity. I’m sure there are plenty of you out there that know more than me so please be sure to comment.
How the hell does that top pipe not cook your leg? They do look nasty though poking out from everywhere. The bike was formerly owned by racer Steve Parrish and had its’ restoration done in 1994. I didn’t inlcude anything else from the auction as it is just TZ500 history. You are going to have to tap that keyboard or pick up the phone to get the details on this pretty bike. Can you think of 60,000 reasons you’d like to add this bike to your collection? Bidding is starting at $60,000. I don’t know how reasonable that is but a restored 81 TZ500 sold in England for 37,400 pounds (roughly $59,000).
If you’d like a piece of Yamaha racing history (and who wouldn’t?) you can .
Noise!
IK
AAAAAAAAAAGGHHHGHGH!
Holy shitting cow! That is the most awesome bike I have ever seen. I need to rob a bank now!
But #7 with AKAI sponsorship, thats Lord Barry’s look right? Did he ride a Yamaha. Sorry for the ignorance here.
Phenominal find
Cook your leg? You go to counter balance and end up with two a-spicy meat-a-balls! Frickin’ beautiful bike though, thanks for the peek!
Bazza rode an essentially privateer Yamaha with Akai sponsorship in 1980, after he left Heron Suzuki. This appears to be a replica of that bike, and it is sweet!!
Ahhh, there is the info I was looking for, thanks Dallas. By the way, has anyone seen the movie, Legacy? It looks like a very nice retrospective on Sheene’s career. I spotted a trailer for it on Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIk-2Mi-izs
I owned and raced(Manx1985) a TZ500H.It was a bike that looked 200mph stood still! When an RG passed you,You were! I won at Cadwell Park with it in ’86,I’ve no idea how.I sold it for 1200 quid in1990 to the Howarth empire,but thats life. Sheene rode the Akai version but the tuning was in the exhaust system and solo bikes just didnt have the space-remember how quick the outfits were then? They needed all the chair space to utalise the expansion boxes. Ian Smith of Leicester could make em go,for one.I tried everthing to make my solo ring but the 250 of the day would run rings round it with the benefit of GP R+D.Compare it to Rocket Ron’s TZ700/750,even with Mally Carter on it ! Finally bought a 4stroke and got some sleep at the IOM.But there was always something about those stokers,pure BITCHES,even if they didnt nip-up
Cheers,Old Guy in Louth.xx
Good stuff Wayne, thanks for the comment.
[…] for it’s day. You can forgive me for thinking of these as mere furniture, however, as we see the last TZ500 posted on RSFBS suffered the same interior designer […]