How a Commuter Bike Beat Harley's Factory Race Team | Yamaha XS650

By 1969, Triumph, BSA, and Norton were losing ground fast, and one of the companies finishing the job wasn't chasing more horsepower or more cylinders. Yamaha built a motorcycle designed to look, sound, and feel like the British twins it was replacing, right down to keeping an old-fashioned 360-degree crank that gave it character and a serious vibration problem. This video traces the Yamaha XS650 from its contested origins in a forgotten Japanese engine maker, through its deliberate British-inspired engineering, to the moment tuner Shell Thuet and a young Kenny Roberts took a heavily modified XS650 onto American flat track and beat Harley-Davidson's factory race team at their own game. We also cover the bike's evolution through the XS2, the short-lived TX badge, and the 1978 XS650 Special, plus how custom builders decades later solved the vibration problem Yamaha's own engineers never fully cracked. #YamahaXS650 #MotorcycleHistory #VintageMotorcycles #FlatTrackRacing #KennyRoberts #ClassicMotorcycles #JapaneseMotorcycles #MotorcycleDocumentary