Yamaha XS500 The road to XS

HONDA’S RANGE WAS a combination of updated designs from the mid-Sixties and their ground-breaking fours, but these were already starting to look a bit dated in the face of Kawasaki’s DOHC fours and Suzuki was still firmly wedded to the two-stroke, especially in the middleweight capacity. Yamaha, meanwhile, were also in two-stroke heaven, yet they had dipped a toe into the four-stroke market with the XS-1 650 twin, which was tough, simple and highly popular. And then things went a little strange... In 1973, Yamaha introduced a 500cc eight-valve DOHC twin, the TX500, with an elaborate counter-rotating balancer to control vibration. Park a TX500 next to a Triumph 500 Daytona from the same year and they are clearly worlds apart. The only machine that came close to the Yamaha was Honda’s CB450, which was getting a bit long in the tooth. The styling was a little strange too – having come up with this high-tech and square-edged engine, it was almost as if Yamaha lost their nerve when it came to styling as they clothed it in similar curvy British style threads to the XS650. The look also mirrored that of their unsuccessful big twin, the TX750, which never made it to Britain.

The 500 twin arrived in the UK as the XS500B in 1975. The bike wasn’t a huge hit, most potential customers going for the 650, a more conventional