When introduced in 1989, this 600 sports bike re-wrote the rules for this class, a vast improvement on the outgoing FZ600, this was the machine to beat, and gave the engineer’s at Honda something to think about!
It’s 91 BHP from a new four valve per cylinder engine, the five valve being dropped, was class leading in it’s day, especially coupled with 65.7 NM of torque. It proved a winner on the track as well, with it’s revolutionary delta box frame, allowing a low weight of just 176kg, class leading at that time.
It was a great success for Yamaha, and only being ousted by the even more powerful and innovative Honda CBR600 F2. Which led to Yamaha upping the game again with the YZF-600R followed by the iconic ‘R6’.
