The world's great bikes #11: Yamaha V-MAX 1200

Few bikes have made as big an impact as Yamaha’s 1984 V-Max. Conceived as a US-only ‘hot rod’, it was powered by a boosted 1200cc V4 producing a mind-melting 145bhp, in an era when Kawasaki’s GPz900R
put out just 108.

Fitted with the fattest rear tyre available and with muscle car-style tank-mounted dials and scoops, the VMX1200 became an overnight sensation and remained on sale for over two decades before spawning an even more powerful successor.

Simply put, ‘icon’ doesn’t even come close. So it may come as something of a surprise to learn that it was inspired by illegal street racing and a full-dress tourer.

The idea came in the early 1980s when big V4s were all the rage in the US: Honda had the VF1100 Magna, Suzuki the Madura and Yamaha, having launched the Venture V4 full dresser, fancied a slice of the hot rod pie.

The concept was to ‘build the strongest bike with a V4’, based on the Venture’s 1198cc, liquid-cooled, DOHC V4, and the engineer put in charge was Akira Araki…