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►If this machine- 472.5
pounds of exotic materials wrapped around triple-digit horsepower—if this
machine had wings it would climb so hard and so high it would give you a
nosebleed. Here, Italian sensuality melds with the hardest design reason:
Show-quality paint and fiberglass enclose a chassis that argues less is more,
that no unneeded part or bracket should ever litter a frame. Weld beads show
that smooth, uniform spacing achieved only by masters, and parts everywhere wear
machining marks as badges of honor, as the sign they were carved from solid
blocks of aircraft-grade aluminum.
It is a Bimota YВ6. It could be yours for only $20,500.
Alongside
the Bimota is a motorcycle that shares the same power source: Yamaha's FZR1000.
Yamaha's 1988 FZR1000 Genesis engine powers the УВ6; the enhanced version, with
an improved cylinder head and a power-valve equipped EXUP exhaust system moves
the 1989 Yamaha. The two motorcycles are more than superficially similar: Both
use massive twin-beam aluminum frames, and share a sport bike mission. The $7600
Yamaha, though, provides a useful reference point for judging the exotic Bimota.
The YВ6,
when first made available a year ago, established Bimota as a leader in
motorcycle design, and confirmed the company's newly refound Midas touch. But a
hard period came first: Five short years ago, Bimota went bust in a down market
no longer able to support the high price of handmade exotica, and the company
was forced to rely on Italian legislation to keep its creditors at bay. Today,
Bimota's factory in Rimini on Italy's Adriatic coast is flourishing; with 34
employees producing more than 500 motorcycles per year, the company is plowing
25 percent of its profits back into research and development.
 The
YВ6 is so composed and self-assured at ludicrous speeds that it constantly poses
the question: Are you good enough as a rider to appreciate this? 
Two things
contributed to Bimota's resurgence: The overwhelming success of the
Ducati-engined DB1 introduced in 1986, and a deal with Yamaha Motor Corporation.
Yamaha agreed to supply Bimota with its advanced five-valve FZR750/1000 engines,
plus handle distribution of Yamaha-engined Bimotas in the expanding Japanese
market through selected Yamaha dealerships.
In the
thriving Japanese economy, Bimota found a market eager for its exotic creations,
and the Italians responded with innovation. Under the de- sign leadership of Ing,
Federico Martini, Bimota produced the FZR750-powered YВ4 racer, its alloy
chassis a radical departure from Bimota's previous steel-tube space frames. The
YВ4 promptly won the 1987 Formula One World Championship, and Bimota followed
with the streetable YВ4 and YВ6 in 1988.
This year,
Bimota will introduce the FZR400-based YВ7, for which the company has already
taken 500 orders from Japan—at $20,500 a pop, the same as the YВ6. Bimota also
offers the 750сс YВ4 with fuel injection for $24,800. If that's not rich enough
for you, Bimota will happily supply the injected YВ4EIR racer for a cool
$45,000.
By
comparison the YВ6 is something of a bargain. It shares the same twin-spar
aluminum chassis with the YВ4 racer, but uses the 1987/88-model FZR1000 engine—a
liquid-cooled, 20-valve four-cylinder with a 45-degree cylinder block, 11.2:1
compression, downdraft induction, and a five-speed gearbox. When Cycle last
tested this engine in 1987, it made 122 rear-wheel horsepower at its 11,000-rpm
redline, and launched the standard FZR1000 through the quarter-mile in 10.71
seconds at 127 mph. In its YВ6 incarnation, this powerhouse remains stock save
Bimota's own 4-into-1 exhaust system.
Our test
YВ6, one of only five in the U.S., was bought by Sam Bernstein through the U.S.
importer, Philadelphia-based Cosmopolitan Motors. Bernstein, a San Francisco art
dealer and founder of the Bimota Owner's Club, U.S. (he also owns a DB1 and an
FJ1200-powered YВ5), shares the need for exotic speed with his older brother,
Funny Car World Champion Kenny Bernstein. Yamaha supplied the 1989 FZR1000,
which has been completely redesigned since last year (see Feb. 1989 issue).
We're
talking about a clash of cutting edges here. Both the FZR and YВ6 have speed
capabilities that cannot be fully explored on the street.
The FZR and
YB6, the best and brightest from Italy and Japan, illustrate the similarity of
high-performance motorcycling. Surprisingly, it is the Yamaha that gets its
design cues from the Bimota. The Japanese have always taken a keen interest in
Bimota's design work, and the redesigned FZR 1000 clearly shows the influence of
the YВ6.
Tо build a
compact machine, Bimota engineer Martini rotated the standard FZR engine back 7
degrees for more vertical cylinder inclination, thus compressing the engine bay
and allowing a shorter wheelbase. For its 1989 redesign, Yamaha did
fundamentally the same thing to the FZR1000 by tilting its engine back 10
degrees to reduce cylinder angle from 45 to 35 degrees. That change, along with
a shorter swing arm, netted a 15mm shorter wheelbase.
Weight
distribution is another area of the new FZR that shows a distinct Bimota touch.
Martini believes that the Oriental preference for front-end bias is less ideal
than a perfect 50/50 front-to-rear weight balance. The YВ6, unladen, has a
49.3/50.7-percent front-to-rear weight distribution. When Yamaha engineers
redesigned the FZR, they arrived at a 49.4/50.6-percent distribution—nearly
identical to that of the Bimota.
For better
handling, the Yamaha also adopted the Bimota's wheel sizes, replacing last
year's 17 front/18-rear combination for the more balanced gyroscopic effect of
wide 17s front and rear.
Roll the FZR
and YВ6 beside each other, however, and it's hard to believe they belong in the
same class. Despite its enviable compactness, the FZR feels huge by comparison.
That's not surprising: The YВ6 has the physical proportions of a middleweight.
Compared to the FZR1000, the YВ6 is an inch shorter between axles, narrower, and
lower in the saddle—due partly to its 20mm-thin racing seat. At 472.5 pounds
fully gassed, the YВ6 is 50 pounds lighter than the FZR 1000, about average for
a 600 sport bike. It's best to think of the YВ6 as a middleweight with one-liter
horsepower.
About 10
minutes with the supplied Allen wrenches strip the Bimota bare. Little else but
race bikes come apart and go together so easily. The entire fairing is one
exquisitely sculpted piece of fiberglass: Loosen the Dzus-type fittings in the
lower fairing seam, and the fairing slides right off. The one-piece
tank-and-seat section, held by four bolts, lifts off to expose the centrally
located plastic fuel tank, and the airbox.
The Yamaha's
bodywork comes off in a dozen pieces, making it more time-consuming to remove
and less integrated in appearance, but it's also less costly to replace in the
event of a tip-over. Bimota's fiberglass panels are beautiful but costly—$3300
for the fairing alone. For the price of a complete set of the Bimota's bodywork,
you could almost buy the FZR1000.
Uncovered,
the FZR and YВ6 expose strikingly similar frame layouts: Perimeter-style alloy
beams wrap around the engines, which are solidly mounted for greater chassis
rigidity. Both bikes feature removable subframes—steel for the FZR, aluminum for
the Bimota. Here the similarities end.
The Bimota's
Verlicchi-made frame resembles Honda's NSR500 Grand Prix frame of two seasons
past. Huge, extruded main spars of 3mm thickness connect to a tubular steering
head at the front, and massive swing arm mounting plates behind that bear the
marks of modern, computer-controlled machining. Intricately machined engine
mounts welded to the main spars bolt solidly to the cylinder block. This upper
frame section is further supported by a massive cross-member extrusion. In back,
the extruded swing arm uses eccentric chain adjusters. Two cross-members, two
solid engine-mounts, and the upper shock tower buttress this swing arm pivot
area. The frame gives the impression of being extremely rigid and perfectly
proportioned, a work of alloy craft that could justifiably share space with the
$200,000 jade sculptures in Sam Bernstein's gallery of oriental art.
The FZR's
Deltabox frame, in contrast, uses tapered main beams formed from aluminum sheet.
This design can put metal and stiffness exactly where they're needed, but
requires expensive metal-forming dies difficult to justify for small-scale
production. Ditto the FZR's sheet-formed swing arm, an expensive, 10-piece
affair with sliding-block chain adjusters.
Japanese
sport bikes rarely look appealing with the bodywork removed, and the FZR1000 is
no exception. The requirements of mass production prompt the use of
injection-molded ABS plastic panels to cover what is too time-consuming and
expensive to finish. Hoses and wires run amuck on the Yamaha chassis. Weld beads
laid down by Japanese robots can't hold a candle to the flawless hand welds of
Italian craftsmen.
Now look at
the YВ6, and see Michelangelo-quality detail finish. All hydraulic lines are
braided steel. Every piece is meticulously machined, perfectly fitted. All the
electrical components are concentrated around the battery, leaving the rest of
the frame uncluttered. One part suffices where two might have been fitted.
Bimota design leaves no excess material, no rough edges. Even small pieces, such
as the pipe hanger bracket, are hollowed, thinned for lightness. You see such
effort on pure racing machines where the cost of shaving a few grams of weight
is rewarded at the finish line. This is the difference between mass production
and the handwork of artisans, and that difference makes it easy to understand
why the Bimota costs what it does.
Pared to the
bone, the YВ6 has the dense mechanical simplicity of a racer, backed by
front-line chassis components. Three-spoke Oscar wheels—a 3.5-by-17inch front,
and a wide, 5.5-by17-inch rear—mount European-spec Michelin A59Х and M59Х
radials: a 1301 60 front, and a massive 180/60 rear. A pair of four-piston
Brembo calipers puts the squeeze on 320mm floating front discs. A smaller, 230mm
rotor resides in back.
Suspension
quality matches that of Bimota's real racers: a 41.7mm Marzocchi fork with
adjustable anti-dive in the left leg, a rebound damping adjuster in the right,
and air caps—though Bimota specifies atmospheric pressure. In back, a single,
remote-reservoir Marzocchi shock offers 12-position compression and 25-position
rebound damping adjustment, and a threaded preload collar. Unfortunately, only
the rebound adjuster is accessible with the shock in place. Such is the price of
the YВ6's dense packaging.
The FZR is
similarly equipped—same basic brake design, though manufactured by Nissin, and
same wheel sizes wrapped in Pirelli's МР7 Sport radials. The Yamaha's massive
43mm fork offers preload adjustment only, but the gas-charged rear damper also
incorporates a four-position rebound damping adjuster.
Both chassis
offer ride-height adjusters in the single-shock rear suspensions—a genuine
racing touch. The Bimota goes the Yamaha one better with eccentric steering-head
cones that can alter rake from 23.5 to 26.5 degrees, with 25 degrees,
4.03-inches of trail as standard. The longer, heavier FZR steers through
slightly slower geometry: 26 degrees and 4.2 inches.
As the
chassis numbers indicate, the FZR 1000 feels ponderous at low speeds, especially
in company with the feathery YВ6. On the other hand, the Yamaha's more compliant
suspension provides supple relief from the constant pounding delivered by our
YB6's rear shock, which was not working to specification. A severe shortage of
rebound damping allowed the shock to top-out hard over rough pavement, and a
broken adjuster prevented us from cranking in more damping. The potholed streets
of San Francisco were especially hard on the Bimota, rattling the bodywork,
jiggling the rubber-mounted Yamaha instrument cluster. We headed for smoother
macadam, where even a rubbery rear shock could not spoil the magic of the YB6.
On the
mythical mountain roads of Mann County, the FZR1000 traded its supple ride for
more chassis movement under braking and acceleration than the YВ6. Off-throttle
cornering loads the FZR's front end, and the bike shows a slight tendency to
stand up under braking. The FZR is happiest when braked upright, then flicked
into the turn in modern GP fashion. Ridden this way, the Yamaha instantly builds
speed more appropriate for the racetrack than for the street.
The Bimota's
firm suspension and anti-dive fork provide a more consistent chassis attitude.
Steering is absolutely dead neutral on the brakes or on the gas. It's important
to remember here that high corner-speed depends to a large extent on the rider's
trust of the front end. How much he trusts it determines how hard he is willing
to push it. You instinctively trust the Bimota's front end. No matter how deep
you brake, or how hard you flick the bike into corners, the front end never
feels like it's going away.
Ridden
quickly on a smooth road, the Bimota has an almost magical ability to disappear
beneath you, leaving only the road to deal with. The combination of lightness,
unshakable stability, and tack-sharp steering makes the Bimota easy to ride fast
or slow, on sweepers or switchbacks. On tight roads, the heavier, longer,
slower-steering FZR takes more effort at the handlebars, augmented by body
English, to initiate a quick turn. FZR and YВ6 brakes are equally powerful—like
hitting a brick wall—though the Bimota's hard-compound pads require more effort
at the lever. Both bikes offer more corner clearance than sane people need on
the street. The Yamaha's Pirelli tires are the best standard-issue rubber we've
ever sampled, the Bimota's Michelins merely excellent.
Prudence
prevented us from thrashing Bernstein's Bimota at the dyno and drag
strip, but side-by-side acceleration contests had the Bimota shrinking
in the FZR's mirrors. That's not surprising: Our YВ6 ran decidedly flat
in the middle and upper rev ranges. The '89 FZR1000 EXUP engine—which
shows a whopping 14-horsepower spike from 6000 to 6500 rpm—offers crisp,
immediate throttle response.► |
