Yamaha MT-01 Motorcycle Headed for Europe

Yamaha has announced that the radical MT-01 concept bike, which you might recall from the 1999 Tokyo Motor Show, is going into production. The motorcycle, which is powered by a pumped-up version of the Road Star 1700 air-cooled pushrod engine, will be a 2005 production model, but only for Europe.

The combination of the low-tech cruiser-derived engine (which has a rev ceiling of about 5000 rpm in current applications) and the cutting-edge performance-oriented chassis makes the MT-01 a hard motorcycle to classify. Yamaha calls it a "Torque Sports" motorcycle.

The Yamaha tease site says the bike offers "a new style of sports riding." It certainly emphasizes the engine, promising "an engine that's so alive that every revolution is an event."

The site is set up to provide multiple preview-peeks about the bike, and if you want to give Yamaha your email address, it will alert you to updates about the production MT-01, slated to debut on September 14.

Yamaha's site for the bike can be found here: www.mt-01.com. That will take you past the flash page, which comes up if you just enter the base URL.