Master Blaster!

Yamaha’s 500cc V4 two-stroke was in 1984 the first bike to offer the average rider the experience of what a Grand Prix racer might be like. John Nutting enjoys a blast on the special Yamaha RZV500R.

- John Nutting

We’ve grown so accustomed to being able to buy sports machines that have been homologated for racing that it’s hard to remember that there was a time we could only dream of the idea.

Superbike racing has reached a pitch where more than a handful of factories offer road bikes that are potential winners on the track. And with enough cash, you can buy replicas of MotoGP V4s like the Ducati Desmosedici or Honda RC213V-S: we’re spoilt rotten.

But it was a different world back in the 1980s, when highly strung 500cc two-strokes ruled the roost in racing. At the start of the decade Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha slugged it out to provide stars like Kenny Roberts, Eddie Lawson, Barry Sheene, Wayne Rainey and Freddie Spencer with ever more potent and lighter machines. Mortals like us could only dribble at the thought of getting hold of a showroom-ready bike with a heady 180bhp, half as much again as the best sportsters, and weighing not much more than a moped.

So when rumours started circulating in 1982 that Yamaha was planning to offer a four-cylinder 500cc version of its giant-killing 350cc YPVS liquid-cooled twin, the tension among the head-banging fraternity reached breaking point. A year later, the dream became reality when the RD500LC was launched at the Milan Show. Was this the real deal? It certainly looked the part. The bike was tiny, with a sleek racing-style fairing in factory red-and-white colours, four expansion chambers sprouting out of the back and a pukka V4, two-stroke, water-cooled, reed-valve engine, with a cassette gearbox, power-valve cylinders and magnesium side cases nestling inside.