World Championship Yamaha YZR500s

We have eagerly anticipated this print making it into production in Japan and endured the laborious import process to get it to America. This is clearly one of the artist's best works thus far--the detail in this "Ago" 500 print is mind-boggling. Look at the area inside the fairing and you'll see that he replicated the small lines and seams inside the fiberglass fairing on this bike. This is an evocative rendering of the bike as it sits in the Yamaha museum in Japan.

Printed on high quality Japanese art paper in wonderfully accurate coloring, this print will no doubt stop traffic no matter where you hang it, be it in your office, home or in a special place in your garage.

The OW23 was the very first racebike that Yamaha developed from the ground up specifically for World Grand Prix 500cc racing. And, who better to develop the bike for than Giacomo Agostini himself? The year prior, Ago surprised the racing world when he announced that he was leaving MV Agusta to ride for Yamaha. The payoff was quick since Ago won his eighth and final 500cc championship--and the very first for Yamaha—the very next year on the OW23. Not bad for the first year of a brand-new motorcycle, and it was only Yamaha’s third year in GP500 competition.

The OW23 had a liquid-cooled, inline-four, two-stroke engine; a chromoly frame; and it featured a “cassette-type” transmission with the main shaft, drive shaft, and shifter assembly all able to be extracted from the engine in one compact unit. As a side note, the cassette transmission technology developed for the OW23 was eventually used on the TZ250 production racer and the TZR250R streetbike.

Yamaha's 1975 world 500cc title was not only the first for Yamaha, but it was also the first 500cc World Championship for a two-stroke motorcycle, which means that the OW23 essentially ushered in the golden era of pre-mix, blue smoke, and That Sound in 500cc GP roadracing.

Not an exaggeration or sales talk: in a down moment when shooting photographs of this '84 Lawson Yamaha we actually reached over to feel the air scoop in the fairing inside the number plate area—the detail and shading on this print is so good that for a second our brain saw it in multiple dimensions.

Japan's craftsmen and craftswomen have been making beautiful paper for centuries. These art prints use a high-quality paper as their foundation and are printed with fade free and vibrant ink. You won't look at motorcycle illustration work the same way again after seeing these prints.

Match this with our 1985 Honda NSR500 print and remember the technology of Grand Prix in the mid-1980s with near clinical detail.

With its V4 two-stroke engine, the OW76 was characterized by a paradigm shift for Yamaha from a rotary disc-valve intake system to an innovative crankcase reed-valve system. The result was smoother power development and easier starting--a definite plus in an era when riders had to push-start their bikes off the line. The OW76 also featured Yamaha's first aluminum Deltabox frame, which was designed specifically for the new 17-inch front wheel that replaced the 18-incher used in 1983.

In only his second year of Grand Prix competition, Eddie Lawson won the season opener in Kyalami, South Africa, on the OW76, and he went on to claim the first of his four world championships.

Three-time world champion and American Wayne Rainey has a brace of very real YZR500s at his home outside of Monterey and now you can have one in your home--at least a beautifully rendered and realistic art print of Rainey's 500.

Any portion of this telling print is testament to the artist's ability to illustrate to a near other-worldly level. Look at the brake calipers, the exhaust pipes, or simply the throttle and be bombarded with detail that only the very best illustrators in the world can pull off.

As with all of our beautiful art prints, these come to you shipped in a heavy duty yet recyclable tube, the prints ready for framing.

The OWE0 featured a more powerful engine than Yamaha’s previous YZR500 iteration, with output increased from 155- to 160-horsepower. But, the biggest innovation for the OWE0 was not the horsepower as much as it was the torque provided by the revised firing order. That's right, 1992 was the first year for Yamaha's "big-bang" engine, which was introduced at the Hungary GP and used throughout the remainder of the season. The innovation improved traction in the low-to-mid-speed range and increased power coming out of the turns, which helped Rainey win his third 500cc world title in as many years.