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Yamaha Has Made A Car With Motorcycle Soul — Sports Ride Concept
Yamaha claims that the driving experience of the Sports Ride Concept is close to riding a motorcycle.
A
brand
new
sports
car
captured
everyone's
attention
at
the
2015
Tokyo
motor
show.
And
it
shares
the
same
DNA
as
the
Mclaren
F1.
Yes,
we
are
talking
about
concept
car
made
by
Yamaha
and
it
is
called
the
Sports
Ride
Concept.
Yamaha is known for its motorcycles, marine equipment, and musical instruments. But another interesting fact of them all is Yamaha motors has actually built engines for several manufacturers since the mid-1960s.
At first, the company partnered with Toyota in 1965 for the production of legendary 2000GT. Yamaha has also partnered with Ford, Volvo and a number of other manufacturers across the globe.
Now Yamaha Motors have built its own car. The Sports Ride Concept has been partly designed by the Mclaren F1's father, Gordon Murray. The two-seater concept was developed using a new version of Murray's patented iStream production process called iStream Carbon.
The sports car is 3,900mm long, 1,720mm wide and 1,170 high. In fact, it is shorter, narrower and lower than Mazda's MX-5. But when it comes to weight reduction, the Yamaha concept is 250kg lighter than the MX-5. The concept weighs only 750kg.
Even though it is a car, Yamaha claims that the driving experience is close to riding a motorcycle. There is no detailed specification of the engine.
Earlier, Murray used a modified 660cc Smart engine for his iStream T25 city car prototype. We can expect a much more powerful engine than this in Sports Ride Concept.
The car uses a carbon fibre chassis and Murray claims it is cheaper than anything currently available with comparable weight and rigidity. The chassis is made using the F1-derived technology of sandwiching a honeycomb core between a pair of carbon fibre skins.
This is much stronger than solid carbon panels used in high-end supercars. The car may be super lightweight, but don't think that it has ridiculous interiors. The interior design consists a mix of saddle leather, carbon and machined aluminium.
And yes, Yamaha has proved that a motorcycle company can build a sports car if it wants to. Another good news is that it is continuing to work on the Sports Ride Concept after Tokyo.