CarBrandLogos archive · Yamaha · 2013

YamahaMT-09

A cheap, light triple with more torque than its price tag suggested was reasonable.

Photo: Chanokchon · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in Yamaha history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Yamaha MT-09, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Yamaha's naked bike range in the early 2010s was competent and dull. The MT-09, launched for 2014, was neither. It used a new 847cc liquid-cooled 12-valve DOHC inline three — a configuration Yamaha chose deliberately, because a triple gives the low-end punch of a twin and the top-end reach of a four — in a lightweight aluminium frame, with the whole machine built down to a price by keeping the suspension and brakes basic.

Yamaha MT-09 Tracer · Danielvd · CC BY-SA 4.0

Design and engineering

The result was a bike that made its reputation on attitude. It was very light, the throttle response in its sharpest mode was abrupt to the point of comedy, and it would lift the front wheel with almost no provocation. Early reviews criticised the soft suspension and the fuelling; Yamaha fixed both over successive updates without taking away the character, and later versions gained an inertial measurement unit, cornering ABS and a quickshifter.

2024 Yamaha MT-09 SP · Chanokchon · CC BY-SA 4.0

In production

More importantly, the engine became a platform. The same triple, in various capacities, went into the Tracer sports tourer, the retro-styled XSR900, the XSR900 GP and the Niken three-wheeler. The MT-09 also set the template for the whole MT family below and above it, and it remains one of the best-selling large-capacity bikes in Europe.

At a glance