1979 Yamaha XS850SG Special - 8-Page Vintage Motorcycle Road Test Article

Description

Yes we combine shipping for multiple purchases.
Add multiple items to your cart and the combined shipping total will automatically be calculated.
1979 Yamaha XS850SG Special - 8-Page Vintage Motorcycle Road Test Article
Original, Vintage Magazine Article
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
YAMAHA XS850SG TEST
• WHEN THINKING ABOUT SPECIALS, DO
you imagine yourself riding one down
Main Street on Saturday night; and maybe
rolling past Mel's Drive-In when the
lunchtime crowd is there; or cruising
smoothly on wheatfield-flanked two-lanes
with an Exciting Companion at your back?
Or does it bother you that Specials seem
to place more emphasis on style than
function? If you believe that these motor-
cycles are just razzle-dazzle corruptions
of serious machines, then you're at odds
with today's majority opinion . . and you
may even be wrong. Some of the Specials
are all flash; more often, now, they offer
mechanical features that justify prices
many riders have been paying for cosmet-
ics alone.
Anyway, like them or not, the Specials
can't be ignored. For one thing, they often
out-sell standard models by margins large
enough to have some Big Four executives
considering making Specials their model-
lineup mainstays, in which case the pres-
ent standards would have to be sold as
"specials." Another thing you should
know is that the better examples of these
drive-in cruisers also function surprisingly
well as twisty-road scorchers, thanks to
their stylish, super-fat rear tires and their
refined, adjustable suspensions.
Yamaha demonstrated that style is not
incompatible with function. The Yamaha
650 and 750 Specials were just styling
exercises, but the tricked-out Eleven we
tested a year ago proved to have been
both styled and engineered. It was, and is,
truly Special. As our report noted, the
Eleven Special "can not only make the
connection with the people who use the
motorcycle as a stage and care deeply
how they look when they’re on it; the bike
also appeals to those who are committed
to performance and function."
Enter, here, Yamaha's new XS850SG, a
bike that is in a quieter way a package
much like its big four-cylinder brother. It,
too, was designed after the sales appeal
of styling had been firmly established, and
is also a well-integrated design rather
than merely being a standard model with
an overlay of "appearance" options.
One indisputable benefit of the Spe-
cials’ successes is that the Big Four's top
management now listens more carefully
when the marketing guys report what is...
13962-AL-7912-04