Post-Sale Update: After 6 bids on eBay, this Yamaha R7 OWO2 sold for $22,200. I’m still drooling.
We’ve been on a little Yamaha homologation special this week, and it ends with what might just be the most beautiful road bike to ever come from Japan, the Yamaha R7, also known as the OWO2. Right from the factory floor, it was a ready to race World Super Bike (WSB) racer with the necessary trimmings (lights/signals/plate) necessary to make it street legal. Prices were incredible – with an MSRP of approximately $32,000, it was twice as expensive as Honda’s SP-1, but it was worth every penny.
You might think that this bike was putting out prodigious power, but you’d be surprised. “Just” 106 horsepower push the R7 down the road, but this bike made up for it by being one of the best handling motorcycles ever produced, even to this day. Yamaha offered two ‘hop-up’ kits – one of which added 25 hp, and a race kit that added 55 hp…at a cost of over $10,000. These came with a titanium crank as standard, and full Ohlins suspension front and rear. The only concern is that the titanium cranks actually had a manufacturing issue from the factory, so many cracked. Yamaha issued a recall – so you must make sure that the R7 you buy has had the crank taken care of.
This specific Yamaha R7 competed in the Unlimited Macau GP, as well as the Northwest 200 and our favorite motorcycle road race of all time, the Isle of Man. This bike has had some aftermarket extras on top of the factory goodies, leading to a dyno result of 182.4 hp to the rear wheel. The only bummer might be the awkward cutouts in the fairings made for the frame sliders. If the seller is to be believed, there’s at least $100,000 worth of parts and development invested in this bike – the components are mind-blowing. Even more mind-blowing? The seller claims to have 3 other R7’s, and there were only 300 made! He claims to be selling the bike to afford a $20,000 set of ceramic brakes for his Ferrari F430GT racer. What a life. We’ll have to keep tabs on him, because he says he might be selling over 100 rare superbikes in the next few months.
Find this Yamaha R7 for sale here on eBay with bidding up to $21,850 in Norwalk, Connecticut.