The Best Yamaha Motorcycles Ever Made [2023 Edition]

Why We Picked It:

When Yamaha released the YA-1 in 1955, it was a calculated but still risky gamble. Yamaha needed to succeed, as the musical instrument side of the company was still rebuilding its factories after the war, and they also had a lot of industrial production tools in their hands from making parts for the Zero fighter aircraft.

The risk came with the price of the YA-1, as competitor Honda was coming out with their inexpensive Super Cub, but the YA-1 was almost twice the price, at ¥138,000 in 1955. To put that in perspective, a University graduate with a good career lined up could expect to make ¥10,000 per year at the time.

Basing their design on the DKW RT125 from Germany, it came with a 123cc two-stroke single, but the designers had improved upon that blueprint bike in every way they could. It was masterfully assembled, with high quality materials and several improvements, including a four speed transmission instead of a three speed. It also featured the first primary kick start mechanism, which allowed the YA-1 to be started while in gear with the clutch held in.

It was also, for the time, surprisingly sporty, and Yamaha entered several YA-1's into races in 1955, coming 3rd in the Mt Fuji Ascent race in July, then winning the Asama Highlands Race in November. In both cases, the Yamaha YA-1 won the 125cc class honors, and a storied history of racing and winning started the very first year that Yamaha Motors existed.

Why We Picked It:

The 1975 Yamaha XT500, which continued production relatively unchanged for 14 years until 1989, was a bike that revolutionized the dual-sport segment in a way few bikes ever had. Drawing inspiration from the home-made scrambler-style motorcycles of the 1960s and early 1970s, when riders would take street bikes and make them off-road capable, the XT500 was an engineering and design masterclass.

In a time when 250cc's was considered quite large, Yamaha crammed a 499cc four stroke single into a lightweight but extremely robust frame, gaving it 32 HP and 29 lbs-ft of torque. Then they gave it off-road suspension, but tuned to be street friendly as well, and then gave it the agility and feel of a sport bike, but one that could get dirty and kick up a rooster tail by sliding the tail out around a corner.

It was so good that it was entered, with a few modifications for racing, into the big African rallies of the mid-1970s, winning both the Paris-Abidjan-Nice Rally and the big one, the Paris-Dakar Rally. It also won, modified for motocross, the 1977 Luxembourg Grand Prix and wound up 9th overall in that season's 500cc rankings.

Why We Picked It:

Yamaha is well known today for the power, quality, and reliability of their inline fours, but they didn't even start making one until 1978. When the 1978 XS-Eleven was released, it had the distinction of being the largest displacement Japanese motorcycle in production. At a whopping 1,101 cc, it produced a mighty 95 HP and 66.5 lbs-ft of torque, with a five speed transmission and, oddly for a sport bike, a shaft final drive.

What set the XS-Eleven apart from many competitors were that it also had a full swingarm based rear suspension, telescopic front forks, and disc brakes, two up front and one in the rear. It was not light at 600 lbs wet, but due to the engine being slung way down low, it was extremely agile with excellent road manners, and would also accelerate as it it had been shot. It also held the production motorcycle top speed record for a short while, at a hair under 130 MPH, and was considered one of the best sport bikes of the 1970s, with a racing version, the XS11, dominating the Australian production motorcycle racing scene and even placing in the podium positions in superbike racing up until 1981.

Why We Picked It:

The XV750 Virago was Yamaha's first foray into making V-twin motors, as well as their first V-twin powered cruiser. It took a lot of inspiration from Harley-Davidson's sportster models of the late 1970s, but with a Japanese twist to things. It innovated as well, as it was the first sport cruiser in the world to come with a rear monoshock swingarm based setup instead of twin-shock or hardtail configuration.

It also looked the part, with big, swept back handlebars, a teardrop tank, massively comfortable saddle and pillion seat, and front forks raked back to just the perfect angle. It was also quick, able to reach 110 MPH, with just 53 HP from it's 748cc V-twin. It was also as reliable as any engine Harley had ever made, but it was priced well below what Harley-Davidson were asking for their Sportsters at the time.

In fact, it was so good and so popular that in a rare move, it was Yamaha that inspired Harley-Davidson to rework their sports offerings, as they feared losing the American market to the Japanese. In a somewhat indirect way, then, Yamaha was the driving force behind Harley's Sportster XLX-61, the entry level, affordable, and most popular Sportster of the early 1980s.

Why We Picked It:

The ADV market, which was started in a prototype form in 1980 by BMW with their R80 GS Adventure bike, was exploding out into the world's markets in the late 1980s. Popularized by the exciting Paris-Dakar Rally, many of the early ADV bikes were of the "Race it on Sunday, buy it on Monday" type. This was especially true for both Honda's Africa Twin, named for the African rallies and its parallel twin engine, and Yamaha's XTZ750 Super Tenere, named after the notorious technical and challenging Tenere stage of the Paris-Dakar.

Based almost entirely on the YZE750 Tenere race bike that Yamaha had entered into the 1988 Paris-Dakar, it was built to bring that rugged toughness, immense power, and who-cares-if-there-is-a-road-I-will-make-my-own attitude of the off-road racing community at the time. Powered by a 749cc parallel twin, it brought the racing innovation of a five-valves per cylinder head to the road, as well as giving it a massive 26 liter (6.9 US gallon) long-range fuel tank, so it had great power but also amazing range.

The Super Tenere was produced until 1996, but in that time frame, the racing bike won the Paris-Dakar twice, cementing the name in history. The entire reason there is a current Super Tenere ES model is because of this first Super Tenere, with the pedigree of a race bike made for the adventuring rider.

Why We Picked It:

While these best-ever lists are meant to focus on street-legal production motorcycles, it would be a travesty to not mention the absolute monster that was the 1990 Yamaha YZR500 0WC1. This bike carried the USA's first multi-year Motorcycle World Grand Prix champion, Wayne Rainey, to the first of his three successive back-to-back-to-back titles, in an era with some of the fiercest competition.

Powered by a two-stroke, 498.5cc V4 with counter-rotating crankshafts, carbon fiber reed valves, and the Yamaha Power Valve System that eventually made it onto road going supersports in the early 2000s, it produced a staggering 170+ HP. It also weighed 285 lbs without rider, so when Wayne cranked the right wrist, it absolutely catapulted off the line at race starts. It was also one of the most agile and nimble race bikes that Yamaha had ever made.

It was a temperamental beast too, only rideable by the greats of the time. Much like the F1 cars of the day, it had insane power to weight, and if you pushed it just one iota too far, it would bite your head off. Still, Wayne was able to wrangle it to 7 wins, 14 podiums in 15 races, and 3 pole positions in 1990 alone. It is one of the greatest race bikes ever made, ridden by one of the greatest American riders of all time, and as such it just had to be included in the list.

Why We Picked It:

When one looks back through the history of motorcycles, one will find the power wars of the late 1990s. Several great superbikes came from that battle, but the best among them is arguably the Yamaha YZF1000 R1, often referred to as just the YZF-R1.

The R1 came about because Yamaha had taken their Genesis inline-four engine, itself a marvel of engineering, and reworked it to create a compact engine with the gearbox input shaft raised and placing the transmission connecting shaft under it. This created the now famous "stacked gearbox" that was almost immediately copied by other manufacturers.

That engine produced 150 HP and 72.5 lbs-ft of torque from 998cc, and because of its compact nature, it was also relatively lightweight. The entire 1998 R1, in fact, had a wet weight of just 435 lbs, so the bike was very, very fast. 0 to 60 in under 3 seconds, a top speed of 170 MPH, and because all of that weight was low down in the frame, and the bike optimized for handling with a short wheel base, it was also one of the most agile superbikes you could buy in 1998.

The rest, as they say, is history, and the R1 is still considered one of the, if not the, best superbike(s) today.

Why We Picked It:

There have been two models in Yamaha's history that have carried the VMAX name, although the original had a hyphen, V-MAX. The 2009 VMAX, however, deserves attention because of one very special statistic about it that is still true in 2023: It was and is the world's fastest accelerating production power cruiser. To achieve this feat, this wasn't your grandfather's typical cruiser...

First of all, it had a massive 1,679cc V4 instead of the typical V-twin of a cruiser. It also mounted the V4 as a stressed member of the frame, making the bike very rigid, with the suspension taking care of all the bumps and lumps of the road. It also was one of the most high-tech bikes from Yamaha at the time, with a computer controlled intake (YCC-I), fully adjustable suspension, ABS, a slipper/assist clutch, and was one of the first bikes to have throttle-by-wire instead of a cable throttle.

The result is that the bike put down damned near 200 HP, 113 lbs-ft of torque, and weighed in at 694 lbs. Despite this, it will destroy 0 to 60 in under 2.5 seconds. No, that is not a typo. The Yamaha VMAX was built for one purpose only, and it states it right in the name.

Why We Picked It:

Throughout history, there have been a lot of motorcycles that get the label of "Beginner bike," "new rider friendly," and the like. Most of the time, these bikes are of a lower displacement or of a more relaxed nature. Not so with the Yamaha MT-07.

When it was released in 2014 as a 2015 model, it was one of the most aggressive looking sport naked bikes on the market, giving many the idea that it would be an absolute monster to ride. That idea, however, was about as far from the truth as possible. What riders discovered was that it was a bike of two personalities.

If ridden casually, it was a casual bike, forgiving, friendly, and comfortable. It had a linear power curve that was easily felt and controlled with the right wrist, and was eager to lean in just enough to make precise and enjoyable turns while communicating everything to the rider, making it a superb bike for a newer rider.

However, as that rider gained skill and confidence, the MT-07 started to wake up. It wanted to get on the throttle and accelerate. It was eager to lean further in to the corner, with the rider ducking down and to the inside with it so it could dig its tires in and carve. It still talked to the rider, but more urgently, more directly, and became a laser-precise scalpel as that new rider became an intermediate.

The MT-07 still is that bike today, a precise, friendly sport naked that will do the daily commute in immense comfort, and then howl with glee as you carve the canyons on the weekends.