New Yamaha SR400 confirmed for USA

I have a Skorpion with 3700 miles on it I might be selling, it needs some more TLC as I have been fixing some of the issues it has from the previous owner not riding it for a few years.

I see all these people wishing for this bike, saying they would pay $5000-6000 for one, while there are used sr500s out there for half that, with centerstands! For the difference, a person could mod the heck out of it!

Well Said

This bike is so great, and I feel it checks all the boxes for what we are missing in the US motorcycle market.

I've been on the phone with Yamaha headquarters to express my interest and see what can be done about getting here. Apparently they only accept written letters. So I'm mailing one tonight!

Just an FYI in case someone else wants to send a letter as well!

Here is the corporate mailing address:

Yamaha Motor Corporation, USA
6555 Katella Avenue
Cypress, CA 90630


(I want one so bad feel free to send me your letter and I'll print it, mail it, and pay for the postage! )

Those bikes are 35 years old. I would love to have a new one, but I don't want a project that cannot be ridden cross country at any time. I would be very interested in this bike, but ONLY if it has either a centerstand or tubeless tires. If there were no way to repair flats on the road, it would be nothing more than a really cool looking display model to me.

Jerry, you claim to be old-school, but you want a NEW bike? You can work on the old stuff, remember?
I would ride mine cross-country right now, no worries.
You'll never make it out of town, let alone Arizona.

"I shouldn't be listening to complaints, I should be making them with you guys! The good Lord lets us grow old for a reason; to gain the wisdom to find fault with everything He's made."

That's what I like about the SR400. It is a brand new "old school" bike. I had a mid '60s Bonneville and loved it, but it had constant problems. I would love to have a new Kawasaki W650. Same looks and feel, but modern and reliable. I thought they were overpriced when they first came out, and didn't buy one. Now I realize I made a serious mistake. I should have bit the bullet and bought one anyway. I would also love to have a brand new SR500, identical to the one made back in the late '70s. It was perfectly reliable.

But from the condition of the bikes I've seen on Craigslist (both SR500 and XS650) they would need a TOTAL rebuild to be reliable, many of the parts are no longer available, and the ones that are cost a fortune. Working on stuff to keep it going is one thing. Building a new one from the ground up is another.

But if I did find a decent SR500 for sale (reasonably priced and mostly stock) I would probably buy it. I could probably get enough fun out of it to justify the price. But I would not want to "mod" it, I want a stock bike. Most of what I've seen have been converted into rat bobbers.

Why do motorcyclist think that some 40 year old bike is like the same thing as a new one? Do you guys still drive cars from the 70's too?

Just because you're to cheap to buy anything brand new doesn't mean that everyone else is as well. Maybe some people like brand new machines that they can go to a store, pick out a color, then buy and ride without worrying about anything.

To answer the last two replies....
You guys want something old school like an SR500. OK, most for sale on the internet are low mileage, don't need to do hardly anything to them. They have centerstands, tubeless tires, etc..
Poop or get off the pot!!! The old ones are just fine, the new ones are OK.
It's a big single, with electronic ignition, which almost never fails. ( no more than a new one). It's kick-start, OK?
There is nothing to go wrong! Jeebus!! Buy it, ride it, quit yer darn griping!
Really, people complain about what they can't have, but when you give it to them, they are still complaining!!!

Oh, yea, Carter, I have six bikes, one I bought new, ride over twenty- thousand miles a year, and don't worry about the reliability of ANY of my bikes!

I bought one of those '78 SR500's in '79. Fun first bike until it's ignition rotor crapped out and left me stranded.

iirc, that was with well under 20k kms on the bike.

In 1980 the replacement rotor from Yamaha Canada was $600.

:huh

Yeah, I look at 70s-80s bikes all the time.

For fun.

The most ominous and expensive understatements on CL- "but just needs..." , "everything works except...", "should be an easy fix...", "new parts included...", "needs carbs cleaned..."

;-)

First one I EVER heard of. Probably trolling.

It's a true thing.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?....474742076759.289321.527091759&type=3&theater

http://www.slideshare.net/indianautosblog/2014-yamaha-sr400-at-eicma-2013

Welcome new guy and thanks for the address. I just might write them too.

Great pic Lornce--you stud you. How old were you there, if you don't mind me asking? I was 14 or 15...

Reminds me of a print Yamaha advertisement of the time.

Nice, shiny new bike. What fairing is that?

Cool picture! Mine's a 1980.

Thank you for the welcome Super Sneak!

If anyone is even remotely interested they should send a letter IMHO. More choices never hurts!

I think buying a used one is a valid choice, but I love all the details that come on the newer model.
-Fuel injection
-Spoked wheels
-Fork gators

I know most of these things are easily added to an old model, but I would love to get a stock bike that is already exactly what I want

I was 17 in this one: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...4742076759.289321.527091759&type=3&permPage=1 And 18 in the BC pic.

The fairing was a generic fibreglass item, made locally for all I remember. A buddy helped me make the aluminum brackets that relocated the headlight up and forward in order to fit the fairing. I'd fitted a pair of clubman racing bars, a big K&N filter and painted the engine flat black. A real "cafe racer". Didn't take long to replace the clubmans with a pair of flat bars which worked much better for actual riding.

I loved that SR500. Fun to ride, great fuel economy (went two teeth up on the countershaft sprocket to give it longer legs on the highway) I don't recall ever really using the brakes. With Girling shocks and Dunlop TT-100's it'd just rail into any corner at whatever speed you were going. You could lean it like crazy with no ill effects.

The failed ignition rotor was a real show-stopper at the time, though. $600 for a new one and I was making $5/hr 2500 miles from home. I gambled and spent my tax return on a used '78 XS650 instead. All I'd ever heard was how indestructable they were. That 650 swallowed it's main bearings three weeks later.

It was summer 1980 and I had $3k tied up in two non-running '78 Yamahas.

In the fall I walked into Walt Healey Yamaha in Calgary and spied a nice, shiny used '78 XS750 with a $2300 or $2400 price tag on it (can't remember exactly)? Explained my situation to a helpful sales dude and he went and talked to the service manager for 5 or 10 minutes. When he returned he told me he'd take my pair of non-running bikes plus $200 in trade for the 750.

I knew they'd make out okay on my bikes once they were running. But it wasn't a bad deal for me either, given my predicament.