Custom-style Yamaha MT-07 to be launched next month
Yamaha confirms plans to introduce a custom-style MT-07 within weeks (but it won't necessarily look like this one)
YAMAHA has confirmed it will soon introduce a new custom-style edition of the MT-07.
Speaking exclusively to Visordown, Yamaha Europe's product manager Shun Miyazawa said we would see the new edition before the Milan motorcycle show in November. ‘You won’t have to wait until Milan,’ he said.
Yamaha sources suggest it will be revealed even sooner, in mid-July.
Last week Yamaha revealed a one-off 'concept' MT-07 by legendary Japanese custom-builder Shinya Kimura. The production machine will not necessarily closely resemble the concept, which was intended simply to 'validate the hypothesis' of a custom-style MT-07 according to Miyazawa.
Talking at the Wheels & Waves custom bike festival in Biarritz, France, where the concept was unveiled, Miyazawa said the intention of the production version had been to ‘start from a modern bike and try to shave off all those sharp edges to make something pure and timeless’.
He said the decision to build a custom-style take on a modern-looking machine had been taken in 2013, a year before the MT-07 itself was launched. Miyazawa said other models had been considered for the treatment including the R1 before Yamaha settled on the 689cc parallel-twin MT-07.
A second customised MT-07 was also on show at the weekend’s Wheels & Waves festival, this one a curvier interpretation by German custom builders Benders. Unlike Kimura’s MT-07, the Benders machine was not billed as an official Yamaha concept.
