Yankee 500 Z

The KTM 950 Adventure recently took out another gong, voted Best Adventure Bike during the Motorcyclist Magazine "Motorcycle and Motorcyclist of the Year" awards in the United States. It seems to be the on-road, off-road, big-bore do-it-all king for 2004.

John Taylor, creator of the unique 'Adventure' bike you see here, tried to build a bike that would do-it-all and "run fast enough to carry the rider down the highways when he wasn't riding the trails". Back in the late '60s when he started putting serious thought into making his dream bike, the rider of the day had a choice between overweight British twins stripped down for off-road use or rather wimpy single cylinder two-strokes that weren't bad for the dirt but useless on the road.

So the solution? Well, in theory it combined the best of both worlds. It had two cylinders, but two-stroke not four, and it was sized sort of in between the two extremes, not exactly trail bike size but not a big mother like, say, a Triumph 650.

It seemed to be heading in the right direction but Taylor didn't want a bike that half filled the bill. He was a passionate bugger and his vision of what he thought the market needed might well have landed the Yankee as many plaudits back then as the KTM is earning now, and 30 years before anyone mentioned the concept of 'adventure bike'. The fact that it didn't was due to a raft of reasons, but let's not cross to the dark side just yet. An exploration of its virtues needs to be laid out on the table first. Suffice to say, if the KTM 950 was handbuilt with the sort of one-off parts and design the Yankee enjoyed it would no doubt be selling for three or four times its current price.

The frame of the Z, for example, was made with 4130 chrome-moly, not uncommon today but back then was, as Taylor said, "like buying gold ingots". Material aside, they then spent four and a half hours making each of the Dick Mann designed frames. Needless to say it bloody well shows; the frame would stand proud beside any Rickman, Cheney, Egli or Bimota frame you'd care to name. Triple-clamps are similarly exotic and forged by Smith and Wesson, the gun makers with a few decades of craftsmanship in their holster, and they'd blow away most of the aftermarket triple clamps today.

A peek at the fork also sheds light on the lengths Taylor went to in his quest for performance, strength and longevity. In the early '70s when the Z was finally released, most bikes, whether road or trail, came with a 35mm fork. The Yankee response to those puny legs was a 42mm fork which, at the time, must have looked insane but compared with the mothership proportions of the rest of the bike looked right at home. It was a good 10 years after the Z was released before any other dirt bike caught up in fork size. And yes, the bike overall wasn't exactly small, or for that matter particularly light (160kgs on a good day) but it would survive come hell or high water.

MIRACLE TWIN
But of course the most interesting part about the Yankee wasn't the frame, fork or even the disc brake (on the rear!), it was that peculiar engine. Taylor was on the right track with the concept, a twin cylinder two-stroke, for it met his design criteria for an engine that was a decent capacity (500cc), lighter than a four-stroke twin, torquey, and could still be used effortlessly on the road. He wanted it to feel like a single so the 360 degree crank has simultaneous firing. And while we're breaking all the other rules, why not make it a six-speeder as well? So he did. 

Since Taylor was the Ossa importer for the US, it made sense to utilise his connections with the Spanish concern. It sounds so simple; just join a couple of Ossa motors together and Bob's your uncle. If only. The bottom-end is mammoth by anyone's definition, and didn't end up the simplest of designs, and not solely because of the six-speed gearbox. The primary drive was also complex, going via a central four-row chain to a jackshaft, thence to a gear drive to the dry clutch (another oddity for its day). The standard cylinder design was lifted straight from the existing Ossa Pioneer enduro model which yielded around 40hp, however you could buy optional exhausts and carbs to get a version that cranked out 70hp, straight from the factory. Ossa figured largely in many of the other bits hanging off the Z, while the Spanish concern Telesco custom-made the aforementioned fork and shocks. The Yankee factory in the State of New York, built the frame, bodywork and pipes, with the rear hub and disc brake components sourced from other US vendors. The standard exhaust system took a leaf out of no-one's book being a flat box under the engine that collected both header pipes at the front and then exited into separate mufflers at the back. Covering the box was an alloy bashplate, and although the whole system was out of the way it wasn't really the hot setup for either power or longevity. Controls were Magura, of course.

EXOTIC BUT HEAVY
Peculiar, pricey, excessive - call it what you will, but when all the words have run out there comes a time when you have to judge whether the mechanical marvel actually earns its keep. Just what is it like to ride?

Almost every magazine test of the Z when it was released had the same opinion. "Incredible quality, stunning design, almost there, but I think I'll pass"...or words to that effect. Most criticism was levelled at the lard; it was just too over the top in the size and weight stakes to win enduros, and it has to be said that Taylor probably shouldn't have pitched the bike at that market. They were never going to be anything but a dual purpose mount.

An American named Yankee Bob owns quite a few of these unusual motorcycles and his take on it goes like this: "I guess what I like best is that if they're ridden the way they were designed to be ridden, they're quite a lot of fun. I like all the thought that went into the basic design, in order that one bike could come close to being all things to all people. "But you needed time to set up the bike. Then they made an excellent dual sport bike or a serious enduro bike. They could be flat tracked or road raced. The major components are nearly indestructable, but then that's the main thing that made them heavy. The power compensates! The weird exhaust system tended to self-destruct from vibration, the dry clutch would get wet with gearbox oil, the clutch basket would not hold up to serious horsepower, and the rear disc brake would get quite hot."

So there you go. Bob is a braver soul than I though and entered one of his bikes in last year's ISDT 30th Reunion Ride. A smooth dirt road is more than enough dual-purpose for me, I just couldn't stand the idea of throwing away such a unique piece of machinery on a rocky hillside. 

That aside, the Z is definitely a unique riding experience. Steering is quite precise, stability is excellent, brakes and suspension are acceptable, which just leaves the power. Sort of just there, not huge on top, or off the bottom, just sort of everywhere.

So what actually happened to this inspired creation in the marketplace? Taylor ended up making around 760 in 1972/73, all in the enduro trim as you see in the pics. By that stage, remember, the concept first took hold in the late '60s, and the market had coughed up a few examples of larger capacity two-stroke single-cylinder trail/enduro bikes which filled the void the Z was hoping to conquer. They were also lighter, cheaper and often faster. Sales were consequently slow and Taylor eventually walked away from the project when his son was killed while test riding.

The Yankee 500 Z now survives as a testament to one man's vision, and as a potential candidate for the award of the first real adventure bike. Sure it had its flaws, but it contained enough flashes of brilliance for it to shining brightly over 30 years later.

'YANKEE' JOHN TAYLOR
STILL REACHING FOR THE STARS
The creator of the Yankee Z, John Taylor, has been a hard man to catch in the 30 years since production of the Z came to a close, in fact he's dodged anyone who wanted to talk about the Yankee, but we got hold of him.

As noted in the main story, there's always been conjecture about why production stopped on the Yankee but Taylor puts it down to one significant event "The devaluation of the US dollar enacted by President Nixon," he said. "It meant that the contract price of the 500cc engine went from $250 to $500, and that in turn would have pushed the price of the 500 Z to over $2300." (As if the world needed another reason to hate Richard Nixon!) So the end result was a bike that priced itself out of the market.

John went on to talk about the other upcoming products for the Yankee brand at the time, including the 460cc single cylinder motocrosser only as a hair's breadth away from production, but one thought that had crossed my mind many times was whether he was actually happy with his unique creation. Three decades later I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised at the response:

"I have to honestly state that I'm satisfied with the Yankee 500 Z - first of several planned Yankee models," he said. "Considering the torque and flexibility, reasonable weight for a 500cc class bike and the handling, I feel the objective was reached."

"It's important to note, though, that the 500 Z involved the contribution of many enthusiasts, starting with Dick Mann, Eduardo Giro (head of Ossa in Spain), Henry Feay (production manger in the US) and all of the motorcycle enthusiasts who worked at Yankee Motor Company, or were consultants like Joe Bolger. I could never have completed this project without their help".