1977 Yamaha XS650D - 7-Page Vintage Motorcycle Road Test Article

Description

1977 Yamaha XS650D - 7-Page Vintage Motorcycle Road Test Article
Original, vintage magazine article
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
If pre-1977 motorcycles were categorized
by their sales records, the Yamaha 650
would rate somewhere between Big
Macs and pet rocks. If they were classified
according to their excitement potential,
the 650 would fit in between sleeping and
watching your grass grow.
Yamaha's 40-inch vertical twin, now in
its eighth season, was originally created to
seduce Triumph Bonneville types, in par-
ticular those who had tired of daily sop-
ping up their motorcycle’s vital fluids from
the garage floor or were fed up with self-
ingesting electrics, nose-diving quality
control, skyrocketing retail prices and the
other hassles normally associated with
owning a British motorcycle.
From a numbers standpoint, the 650 has
been an unqualified success. A steady,
consistent seller all along, it carried more
than its share of the load in the years when
Yamaha didn’t have a big. multi-cylinder
“superbike" for sale. But despite the styl-
ists' attempts to copy the “Triumph look."
the Yamaha 650 has never been able to
capture that special, intangible magic
which made a Bonneville one of the most
coveted bikes of its time.
Nor has the Yammie’s performance
been anything to write home about. The
650s were a little slower and a lol heavier
than a Triumph, a lot slower and much
rougher than comparable-sized multis.
and they've garnered a reputation for hav-
ing more handling quirks than a rubber
unicycle
This leads us to the inescapable conclu-
sion that the 650 Yamaha has sold well
and survived much criticism not because
of what it does, but because of what it
doesn't: Il doesn't leak, it doesn’t break, it
doesn’t require much attention and it
doesn't cost much. So if you're not a
demanding performance buff, a motorcy-
cle with all those “doesn'ts" looks like a-
good deal.
There are. of course, other reasons why
one would buy a 650 Yamaha. Some peo-
ple like the stump-pulling torque of a big
twin or the sound of its exhaust or the
narrowness of its engine. Others are wooed
by the aesthetics of a vertical four-stroke
twin. And ever since BSAs died off and
Nortons and Triumphs began their on-
again. off-again existence, the Yamaha
650 has been the closest thing to a British
twin you could gel.
Admittedly, we've rapped the 650's
shortcomings in the past, but we have to
admire Yamaha's loyalty to the motorcy-
cle. The company has stuck with the 650
and. slowly but surely, its designers have
exorcised most of its gremlins.
Yamaha's sales force is extremely en-
thusiastic about the 1977 XS650D. And
they have a right to be. For the “D” model,
while still no Triumph, is al long last a
motorcycle we can recommend without
serious reservations.
13802-AL-7703-09