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1979 Yamaha XS850SG Special - 8-Page Vintage Motorcycle Road Test Article
Original, Vintage Magazine ArticlePage Size: Approx. 8\" x 11\" (21 cm x 28 cm) each pageCondition: Good
YAMAHA XS850SG TEST• WHEN THINKING ABOUT SPECIALS, DOyou imagine yourself riding one downMain Street on Saturday night; and mayberolling past Mel\'s Drive-In when thelunchtime crowd is there; or cruisingsmoothly on wheatfield-flanked two-laneswith an Exciting Companion at your back?Or does it bother you that Specials seemto place more emphasis on style thanfunction? If you believe that these motor-cycles are just razzle-dazzle corruptionsof serious machines, then you\'re at oddswith today\'s majority opinion . . and youmay even be wrong. Some of the Specialsare all flash; more often, now, they offermechanical features that justify pricesmany riders have been paying for cosmet-ics alone.Anyway, like them or not, the Specialscan\'t be ignored. For one thing, they oftenout-sell standard models by margins largeenough to have some Big Four executivesconsidering making Specials their model-lineup mainstays, in which case the pres-ent standards would have to be sold as\"specials.\" Another thing you shouldknow is that the better examples of thesedrive-in cruisers also function surprisinglywell as twisty-road scorchers, thanks totheir stylish, super-fat rear tires and theirrefined, adjustable suspensions.Yamaha demonstrated that style is notincompatible with function. The Yamaha650 and 750 Specials were just stylingexercises, but the tricked-out Eleven wetested a year ago proved to have beenboth styled and engineered. It was, and is,truly Special. As our report noted, theEleven Special \"can not only make theconnection with the people who use themotorcycle as a stage and care deeplyhow they look when they’re on it; the bikealso appeals to those who are committedto performance and function.\"Enter, here, Yamaha\'s new XS850SG, abike that is in a quieter way a packagemuch like its big four-cylinder brother. It,too, was designed after the sales appealof styling had been firmly established, andis also a well-integrated design ratherthan merely being a standard model withan overlay of \"appearance\" options.One indisputable benefit of the Spe-cials’ successes is that the Big Four\'s topmanagement now listens more carefullywhen the marketing guys report what is...
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