Cafe Racers
1981 YAMAHA XV750
C
HRISTIAN Moretti is a talented bike builder based in LavenoMombello in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. He is particularly fond of getting hold of what he calls “old bikes only good for trash” and turning them into something better, which is why he calls his business Plan B Motorcycles. “This XV750 is the perfect example,” Christian says. “It was designed to compete with Milwaukee’s twins but despite some interesting technical solutions, it turned out too clean, too quiet, almost tasteless and without the character of the American bikes.” Little was known of the donor bike’s history when a prospective client, who Christian calls Mr F, dropped in with his Yamaha. “Sometimes it’s better not to ask,” he says of the boxes of rusty parts, spray-painted engine pieces, knots of electrical wire and a chassis repaired with water pipe that lobbed in his workshop. “If I’ve learned anything these past few years, it’s better to just act as if everything is normal and get on with it. “The XV750 wasn’t the best custom bike in history and this particular one was not in the
“I DECIDED TO GO AGAINST ALL RATIONAL LOGIC AND TURN IT INTO NEO-CLASSIC CAFE RACER” best shape. But the bike’s potential was hidden there somewhere. In the end, I decided to go against all rational logic and turn it into neoclassic cafe racer, agile but strong, stable on the straights but fast through the corners. “My inspiration was a Benelli fuel tank from a US export model called the Mojave, that had hung on the wall of my living room for several
years waiting for the right project. I have to thank Greg Hageman and Classified Moto for being the first to put the Mojave tank on a Virago, but I wanted to push it further. I sat the tank on the frame and then let everything else be defined by its curves.” XV Yamahas have what Christian calls invisible mainframes, using the engine as the core to which everything else is bolted with the top frame tubes hidden under the tank. The idea is as old as the Series B Vincent and has been recently revisited by Ducati, but you don’t often find it in a cruiser. It means you can do whatever you want visually without compromising the
Cruiser Dawn THE Yamaha XV750 was Japan’s first attempt at a proper cruiser when it was released in 1981 and bears zero resemblance to what you’re looking at here. Factory customs had become increasingly popular from the late 1970s, but were lightly modified versions of popular existing models like the XS650. The XV was designed from the ground-up as a small sanitised version of a Harley-Davidson, at least in spirit, with wide high bars, low seat and an even lower centre of gravity from the all-new V-twin engine. Thankfully, the designers came up with their own take on the styling, avoiding slavishly copying Harley as so many do today. It wasn’t long before Harley was copying Yamaha, at least when it came to adopting a triangulated, cantilevered swingarm to mimic a hardtail rear end as they later did on the Softail.
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ISSUE #19
The Yamaha lacked the soul but was infinitely more reliable than the pre-Evolution Harleys, and was fitted with fuss-free shaft drive that was all the rage at the time. At 225kg dry, weight was about average but 51hp was on the low side for power. No-one complained, the XV750 was a gentle soul and proved very popular, single-handedly launching a whole new genre of Japanese cruising bikes. Having a bet each way, Yamaha also released the XV1000 TR1 at around the same time. Sporting a bigger engine, chain-drive and conventional streetbike styling, all the magazine testers raved about the handling and performance of the ‘modern Vincent’ but not so the general public; it disappeared without trace. How ironic that blokes like Christian Moretti are doing it better nearly 35 years later.