About this design
Kenny Roberts' 1980 Yamaha 0W48R t shirt, illustrated by Peter Hutton.
It seems to me motor racing is a solvent of engineering convention, think of Keith Duckworth, Colin Chapman, Adrian Newey, think of Yamaha. What haven't they tried? The R in the model description of Kenny Robert's 1980 Yamaha stands for reverse and refers to the outer two cylinders having the carburettors to the front of the cylinders and the exhausts coming straight back while the two inner cylinders, 2 and 3, have a more conventional arrangement, carburettors breathing under the seat/tank and the exhausts going forward to bend under the crankcases. It would be interesting to fully understand the advantage. By all accounts Yamaha are not likely to help with an explanation anytime soon, but we should be grateful to Yamaha for daring to develop the idea.
It is a shame two strokes to all intents and purposes are no longer with us. These engines are light, relatively simple and cheap and very powerful, in this case something in the order of 150bhp from 500cc: 300 bhp per litre 30 years ago. Perceptions of 2 strokes being dirty killed them off. Certainly no motorcycle manufacturer had a 500cc two stroke for anything other than racing in 1980.
Celebrate a great motorcycle, Yamaha a great motorcycle manufacturer, Kenny Roberts a great motorcycle racer and Peter Hutton a great illustrator, wear our Yamaha OW48R t shirt.
Peter Hutton has been one of the UK's leading illustrators since the late 1950's. His reputation as an illustrator among the community of owners of historic vehicles is such that they are happy to partially disassemble their cars and bikes to allow him to deliver his take on the key components. In his own words: “Although I take some photos I do sit and draw the car, to draw is to understand how components fit together, you see things you cannot see in a photograph, drawing requires total concentration and an image is ingrained in the memory for when pen is put to paper for the final drawing.”
I would say it shows. There are eight of Peter's illustrations available on t shirts and I hope in time there will be more.