Retro is the word for Tokyo

Could Yamaha be returning to the good old days of having a sweet one-litre V-twin road bike in its line-up? It certainly looks that way with the release of the XS-V1 concept bike just prior to this year's Tokyo Motor Show, which opens on 27 October.

We revealed Honda's retro concepts recently (read more here) and Yamaha's futuristic hybrid fuel machinery last week (read more here), but this twin has come from the other end of the spectrum. The firm actually produced an XV1000 street bike in the 1980s, to mixed reviews.

This machine, however, seems to borrow some styling influences from its pretty XVS250, with some additional retro touches thrown in.

Yamaha's media release on the bike says: We display the "XS-V1 Sakura" (special exhibition model / prototype) as a symbol of our long-nurtured corporate philosophy. This is a V-twin sport model with a look of "Japanese style" in the image of Yamaha's first 4-stroke model, the XS-1 (650cc), released in 1970. Its design is full of XS-1 DNA, in its simplicity and functional beauty and finds new refinement in a retro-modern aesthetic. It is a model that proposes a very Yamaha and very Japanese vision of premium motorcycling life, bringing together the unique characteristics of a 1,000cc air-cooled, V-twin model with its strong pulse feeling and easy-going running performance in a finely crafted body that is lightweight and slim and defined by a low seat height.

Yamaha world site: www.yamaha-motor.co.jp/global/index.html