The 1987 Yamaha YZM500
April 02, 2007
As you may know (or not, as the case maybe) the biggest influence on me deciding to become a motocross mechanic was seeing Dave Thorpe’s Full Works Honda when as a GP virgin I went to Farleigh Castle in 1984. I know that I speak for a lot of riders and mechanics when I talk about being influenced by certain bikes which leave psychic tattoos in the brain, that when thought about again just bring about a waterfall of emotions which results in an instant grin on one’s chops from ear to ear, along with a funny warm feeling around the heart area.
With that in mind we thought we’d run a new feature where we at MOTO introduce you to some of our favourites. These bikes were totally unobtainable to the public, and it was a miracle if you could find one stock part on them. How trick is that? A very different scenario to the new era that emerged in 1987 when the AMA introduced their production rule, therefore ending in one foul swoop the golden era of the full works bike. So to start the series off we threw our net as wide across the world as we could, to track down those beasts of the past that bring tears to many a grown man’s eye. Mostly in the hands of collectors now, we managed to track them down; so without much further ado we would like to introduce you to what many people think was one of – if not the – trickest bike of all time: Team Yamaha’s 1987 YZM500.
The first in the series is truly a worthy machine, the Yamaha YZM500 was groundbreaking back in 1987 when it was first brought to the world stage, in fact it is only in 2006 a full 19 years later when an aluminium framed open class bike has been released from the Yamaha factory in production form – it was that ahead of its time. Add to it that Yamaha has never made a production water-cooled open class 2-stroke bike, so it’s easy to see how special this bike was!
The bikes were used for two years only in competition, during 1987 and 1988 the riders were pencilled in to be Jacky Vimond and Leif Perrson, though in a freak nightclub accident whilst celebrating his 250 World Championship, Vimond fell from a bike suspended from a Paris nightclub and broke his back putting him out of contention until late in 1988. At the last minute they drafted in the Finnish rider Kurt Lundquist who did a stellar job of keeping the all new factory effort in the limelight. The guy overseeing the project was Lin Jarvis, who was also responsible for signing Roadrace icon Valentino Rossi to Yamaha a couple of years ago.
There were only ever eight complete bikes ever made, which over two years racing goes to show how special and expensive these were. There were six on the initial delivery in 87 and another two for the 88 season, they simply used the same bikes for two years though the parts budget on most of the consumables was pretty healthy to keep the bikes going. There was never an actual value set on one of these bikes but it was well known within the company that they were considered to be very, very expensive.
The actual bikes were so special there were no production parts on them at all, though the bike was much more similar than it was thought to the air-cooled steel frame factory YZ490 that Hakan Carlqvist had been racing and developing for years. The bottom end of the motor was identical apart from the addition of the water-cooling system in the cylinder, head and of course the water pump mounted on the sand cast magnesium 2–piece clutch cover.
There were never any power figures released for these bikes, though even if the teams had put them on the dyno (which they never did) they wouldn’t release them, all we can assume is they were plenty fast enough! The team had almost no engine problems and in fact did almost no testing as the bike was good enough as it came from Japan – in the two years they raced the bikes and there were enough complete gearboxes sent that the mechanics simply slotted in a new one each GP, though it has to be said there was next to no wear on them, but if the stuff is there it may as well be used!
The running gear, which included the wheels and suspension, was all pretty much the same as the older 490, though this was not to be sniffed at as it was all machined billet magnesium and ally – all very trick stuff, but alone it wasn’t the reason for the hoo-ha the bike created.
The chassis was so advanced it still looks good now; the frame was a mixture of extruded sections welded to machined billet parts, the square section was never seen before. The factory provided enough frames to replace them after four GPs, though the mechanics had to work hard to keep the bikes looking good as nothing was anodised and you can bet that a lot of buffing and polishing was done at the Amsterdam based workshops! Only at one GP, the Belgium race at Namur was there a problem; the water used to keep the dust down was mixed with a crystal designed to hold the water, thus keep the dust down which destroyed the aluminium – the frame on both bikes had to be junked after just one race as there was no way of cleaning them.
The subframe was a monocoque design which means the actual airbox and the subframe were the same, not bolted together like nowadays, again it was way ahead of it’s time and to this day production costs prevent this from being done on the current bikes. The actual subframe was one of the parts which was in short supply, with only two spares for the whole 87 season, and when they started to crack it became an issue – the team simply welded them each week and hoped for the best. They never actually broke, but as the material used where the pipe ran through the body was simply too thin they cracked every week.
The tank was ally painted white and had air vents going through it to get good, cool air through to the air filter.
The suspension was Ohlins on the rear and even though Carla had been developing the all-new Ohlin upside-down forks in 1986 they weren’t good enough at that time, so the factory opted to go with the conventional KYB factory forks, which were well proved on the 250 class bikes from Van de Berk and Vekkonen of the same era.
The bikes didn’t win any championships; in fact the GP wins were thin on the ground, though that in fairness is more down to the competition from the mighty HRC and Kawasaki efforts than the lack of technology used by Yamaha. However, they did win in Finland 88 when Vimond came back and Perrson won the le Touquet Beach Race on a YZM with the blue Sonauto Yamaha livery of the French importer. It was a common opinion at the time that after Vimond got hurt Yamaha never really stepped up and hired a top-flight pilot for this bike.
Obviously the team weren’t too easy with letting people ride the bike, but Roger Harvey who is the head honcho at Honda was a Yamaha guy at the time and late in 88 he got the chance to try the bike out. “That bike was everything you would expect from a factory bike – and then some” was the initial reply when we asked him about it, he goes on to say he didn’t want to even try the bike until he had hung his boots up on his professional career, “after all what good does it do you knowing what advantage the factory guys have – unless you’re getting offered a deal to use one then it just depresses you! That bike was THAT good”
The legacy of the 87/88 Yamaha YZM is really impressive and for many it is considered in the highest ranking possible when it comes to factory exotica. Our thanks go to the collector who wishes to remain anonymous for allowing us access to shoot the bike, also thanks to the former mechanics and team staff who provided the information about these highly secretive race programs.
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