Yamaha 1670 MT-01 Kit phase 1 2005 — Specifications

Forty-eight hours with a 1670 cc V-twin. Not another roadster, not yet another naked variant designed for sales statistics. The MT-01 in Kit phase 1 configuration is a radical proposition, almost uncomfortable in its honesty: Yamaha took a traction unit from the agricultural world and dressed it in R1 components. The result either wins you over or unsettles you. It leaves no one indifferent.

The detail that changes everything on this particular example is the pair of Akrapovic silencers. Normally, aesthetic modifications leave me skeptical. But here, the argument holds up on both counts. Visually, the exhausts sign off the whole package with a coherence you wouldn't have expected. Acoustically, they turn every throttle opening into an event. The 97 hp V-twin, wrapped in its free-flowing exhausts, rumbles at low revs and barks from 3,000 rpm. The instrument cluster with its large tachometer — redline set at 5,500 rpm, which says a great deal about the machine's philosophy — remains legible, understated, almost utilitarian. You'll find the traditional trip-master that counts down from reserve, a Yamaha signature for years.

Starting the beast in a quiet environment is an experience in itself. The idle warms up, hesitates, vibrates through the die-cast aluminum frame. The throttle demands a degree of commitment, and at the first hint of acceleration, the 150 Nm available from 3,750 rpm make themselves known with brutal immediacy. By comparison, a Speed Triple or Z1000 from the same era seem almost docile. The MT-01 doesn't play in the same league. It pulls at your arms, stretches your silhouette, and when decelerating with the Akrapovics, it sings in a way that few two-wheeled machines can claim.

In the saddle, the 825 mm seat height and 265 kg fully fueled command respect. Low-speed maneuvering demands genuine physical involvement, and the width of the seat doesn't make getting a foot down any easier. The single-seat unit, as handsome as it is with its carbon trim, generously transmits the engine's heat. This is not a machine for 500-kilometer days, and the 15-liter tank confirms that calling: the MT-01 is ridden in bursts, not endurance runs. On the other hand, once speed builds, the R1 lineage makes itself felt. The radially mounted calipers, the 43 mm inverted fork with 120 mm of travel, the reinforced swingarm: all of this gives the machine a dynamic behavior that surprises given its size. It holds its line, brakes short, and allows a degree of confidence in hard corners.

Then there's the question of price. At €15,614 in this Kit phase 1 configuration — exhausts, single seat, carbon — the MT-01 positions itself at the top of its segment. It targets a specific audience: experienced riders looking for a singular machine, those who prefer the texture of a big twin to the peak power figure of a four-cylinder. It reconciles sensations usually found in separate worlds: the low-end torque of large American bikes, the agility of European roadsters, and a look that resembles nothing else on the market. That is both its strength and its limitation. It will never win unanimous approval on paper, but it is one of those machines you don't forget after forty-eight hours in the saddle.