Home Classic Yamaha Owners Stories from the US/Canada Yamaha RD350 Police of Ken McCormick
Yamaha RD350 Police of Ken McCormick

Tom Craig from Canada sent these pictures from a rare ex-Police Yamaha RD350.

The bike is owned by Tom s brother-in-law, Ken Mc-Cormick in Ontario. (I suppose this is Ken, the proud owner, in rather unfriendly motorcycling weather....)

yamaha rd350 police

 

We dug it out last weekend (it was hidden behind a bunch of XS1 projects) and twe ook some pictures before winter set in. (Do you see the early Yamaha XS1F on the background??)

yamaha rd350 police

The bike was bought by a previous owner at an auction in Brazil and before he took possession the police lights etc were removed hastily(snip, snip)

yamaha rd350 police

These special switches also used on other Police Yamaha's in the 1970's.

yamaha rd350 police

Ken has all the documents to support this. Hopefully I took enough pictures to display the obvious differences from a standard RD.

yamaha rd350 police

Sorry not to have checked date; I just assumed it was 1973 by the tank decal. That is correct, but as the Police bikes weren often part of a large order, it is possible that it is produced later.

yamaha rd350 police

While visiting a vintage race meeting at Mosport this summer Ken struck up a conversation with Stan Nicholson, apparently they knew each other and when I saw the picture of Stan on his Yam on your site (Ken is on the frontpage with his Yamaha TD2(B) production racer) I thought of Ken and his odd Yamaha and paid a visit to him with my camera in hand.

Differences: Tank is larger than stock, (European size 16 litres)

yamaha rd350 police

The flashers are mounted on the fork top not to the headlight. The rear ones are also at an odd angle.

yamaha rd350 police

White faced instruments, with a very optimistic speedometer.... 140 mph means 224 km/h....! Can you imagine a fully dressed police man travelling as fast as a production racer with this thing ?? And with side-bags and a huge fairing? Either Yamaha was very optimistic or they did it to scare those poor Brazilians who looked at the bikes when they were parked somewhere!

yamaha rd350 police

yamaha rd350 police

Police stuff- crash bars, fairing, small box behind seat, solo seat is missing saddlebags.

(I remember these saddle bags available as normal accessory also for the XS1F !)

 

Some of the changes from stock that I know could well be common in another Market? Oh yeah, when I scratched some of the white paint all I found underneath was more white paint.

Yes, that is correct, they were not over-painted. Yamaha made them as a pure Police bike.

The pictures are taken at Ken McCormicks' home here in Ontario Canada. Tom Craig, Canada

 
 

Profile Information

Application afterLoad: 0.000 seconds, 0.51 MB
Application afterInitialise: 0.047 seconds, 2.74 MB
Application afterRoute: 0.086 seconds, 4.70 MB
Application afterDispatch: 0.149 seconds, 7.57 MB
Application afterRender: 0.242 seconds, 8.29 MB

Memory Usage

8734896

16 queries logged

  1. DELETE
      FROM bal_session
      WHERE ( time < '1329937324' )
  2. SELECT *
      FROM bal_session
      WHERE session_id = '0mlfk4doc80hmeot375iek59g2'
  3. UPDATE `bal_session`
      SET `time`='1329938224',`userid`='0',`usertype`='',`username`='',`gid`='0',`guest`='1',`client_id`='0'
      WHERE session_id='0mlfk4doc80hmeot375iek59g2'
  4. SELECT *
      FROM bal_components
      WHERE parent = 0
  5. SELECT folder AS type, element AS name, params
      FROM bal_plugins
      WHERE published >= 1
      AND access <= 0
      ORDER BY ordering
  6. SELECT `id`,`link`
      FROM bal_menu 
      WHERE ((`name` LIKE '%classic yamaha owners%')
      AND (`published` > 0))
  7. SELECT oldurl, newurl
      FROM bal_redirection
      WHERE oldurl = 'classic-yamaha-owners/stories-from-the-us/canada/yamaha-rd350-police-of-ken-mccormick.html'
      ORDER BY rank ASC
      LIMIT 1
  8. UPDATE bal_redirection
      SET cpt=(cpt+1)
      WHERE `newurl` = 'index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=78&catid=67&id=364&lang=en&view=article'
      AND `oldurl` = 'classic-yamaha-owners/stories-from-the-us/canada/yamaha-rd350-police-of-ken-mccormick.html'
  9. SELECT m.*, c.`option` AS component
      FROM bal_menu AS m
      LEFT JOIN bal_components AS c
      ON m.componentid = c.id
      WHERE m.published = 1
      ORDER BY m.sublevel, m.parent, m.ordering
  10. SELECT template
      FROM bal_templates_menu
      WHERE client_id = 0
      AND (menuid = 0 OR menuid = 78)
      ORDER BY menuid DESC
      LIMIT 0, 1
  11. SELECT a.*, u.name AS author, u.usertype, cc.title AS category, s.title AS section, CASE WHEN CHAR_LENGTH(a.alias) THEN CONCAT_WS(":", a.id, a.alias) ELSE a.id END AS slug, CASE WHEN CHAR_LENGTH(cc.alias) THEN CONCAT_WS(":", cc.id, cc.alias) ELSE cc.id END AS catslug, g.name AS groups, s.published AS sec_pub, cc.published AS cat_pub, s.access AS sec_access, cc.access AS cat_access 
      FROM bal_content AS a
      LEFT JOIN bal_categories AS cc
      ON cc.id = a.catid
      LEFT JOIN bal_sections AS s
      ON s.id = cc.section
      AND s.scope = "content"
      LEFT JOIN bal_users AS u
      ON u.id = a.created_by
      LEFT JOIN bal_groups AS g
      ON a.access = g.id
      WHERE a.id = 364
      AND (  ( a.created_by = 0 )    OR  ( a.state = 1
      AND ( a.publish_up = '0000-00-00 00:00:00' OR a.publish_up <= '2012-02-22 19:17:04' )
      AND ( a.publish_down = '0000-00-00 00:00:00' OR a.publish_down >= '2012-02-22 19:17:04' )   )    OR  ( a.state = -1 )  )
  12. UPDATE bal_content
      SET hits = ( hits + 1 )
      WHERE id='364'
  13. SELECT m.*, c.`option` AS component
      FROM bal_menu AS m
      LEFT JOIN bal_components AS c
      ON m.componentid = c.id
      WHERE m.published = 1
      ORDER BY m.sublevel, m.parent, m.ordering
  14. SELECT id, title, module, position, content, showtitle, control, params
      FROM bal_modules AS m
      LEFT JOIN bal_modules_menu AS mm
      ON mm.moduleid = m.id
      WHERE m.published = 1
      AND m.access <= 0
      AND m.client_id = 0
      AND ( mm.menuid = 78 OR mm.menuid = 0 )
      ORDER BY position, ordering
  15. SELECT oldurl, dateadd
      FROM bal_redirection
      WHERE newurl = 'index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=81&lang=en&view=archive'
  16. SELECT oldurl, dateadd
      FROM bal_redirection
      WHERE newurl = 'index.php?option=com_search&Itemid=82&lang=en&view=search'

Language Files Loaded

Untranslated Strings Diagnostic

None

Untranslated Strings Designer

None