YAMAHA has released a teaser video for a soon-to-be unveiled new naked bike which it calls an ‘unstoppable force’.
A message on Yamaha Europe’s YouTube channel gives little away but it says it’s provocative, naked and agile, and will give us a ‘rude awakening’. Oh, and it’s got two wheels.
However, there is one clue. The message includes the phrase ‘The Dark Side of Japan’. That’s the tagline Yamaha uses for its MT series.
Currently there are two models in the series, the 660cc single-cylinder MT-03 and the recently-launched MT-09, an 847cc triple. Until 2010 there was also the MT-01, a 1670cc V-twin.
What the next MT could be is unclear but an MT-07 is not unlikely. Yamaha trademarked the names 'MT-09' and 'MT-07' at the same time.
One possibility is it will have a 675cc triple engine which Yamaha is believed to be developing. The other perhaps more likely possibility is it will use the new parallel twin 'crossplane' engine shown in Japan earlier this year. There's no word yet on the capacity of that engine, but it’s probably around the 500-700cc mark.
The video itself is even less informative, showing us a musical box made from motorcycle parts with a rotating rider in black leather and, oddly, tights, like a kind of S&M Stig.
Yamaha’s message says: ‘Just over the horizon there's a new kind of 2-wheeled animal heading this way. It's provocative. It's naked. And it's agile.
‘The Dark Side of Japan is about to deliver another rude awakening to the streets of Europe.
‘And resistance to this unstoppable force is impossible.
‘Now, more than ever, sleeping bikers have a reason to rise up and ride.’
The new model will be unveiled on November 4 at Milan’s EICMA bike show .
