| Yamaha YL-1 brochures |
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In my view one of the nicest motorcycles Yamaha ever made, the YL-1. The relatively long stroke (bore 38 x stroke 43) motor was (and is) very quiet and spins like an electric motor. The seems to be a lot of interest in the YL-1 (you can see that as a "Webmaster"), so here are the brochures from all the production years, also in large size. Here is the "original" first 1966 leaflet. This model had a silver painted front fender, small rearlight and very small flashers and a black/white seat. On one of the inside pages we even see Phil Read, World Champion 250 ccm, going "flat-out" on the YL1 at an astronomical, maybe 110 km/h! Good fun! The 1967 model looks (the brochure) already more "flashy", but the model was the same. Maybe Yamaha thought: "never change a winning specification"... Interesting is that the frame down pipe is painted red on this model and black on the 1968 model, but chromed on most of the other machines. The 1968 model had a chrome front fender, mufflers of a different shape (like the AS1), a larger rearlight and larger flashers and a black seat, which was also slightly more comfortable (backside of brochure). But on the frontpage the 2 bikes have the "old" silencers, a short chainguard and silver painted front mudguards.....! Also the rear shockabsorbers are of the shrouded type. This machine pictured is a 12 Volt Electric start type, you can see that on the bulge on the crankcase cover. The 1969 machine was again identical with the 1968 model. Strangely, in 1970 the YL1 is seen again with a silver painted front fender and the old-style mufflers, although the black seat remains. In 1969 there was even a YL3 with 5 speed gearbox available. This model had a 5-port engine and 10,7 PS and the AS1 type mufflers as well. Summarizing you can see that Yamaha changed specifications a lot, depending on the countries the machines were exported to. I have seen many restored YL-1's without a full cahincase but that is absolutely wrong. They all had a full chaincase. Electric equipment was 6 Volt or 12 Volt (electric start). The YL1 story continues! Peter Abelmann found in his super files these fantastic period advertisements, In the USA everything is possible but I also have never seen a YL1 with SIDECAR ! And a very enterprising Accessory Company even came with a "race" type exhaustsystem, but yes, there was no noiseproblem in those days.......!
To my big surprise Peter also has this letter, informing the Dealers about the possibility to order a 6-speed gear cluster for this simple machine! This letter came from an USA dealer together with other correspondence.
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