VOL. 51 ISSUE 5 FEBRUARY 4, 2014 P63
BY ALAN CATHCART
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEVIN WING
S
cooters are practical, mo-
torcycles are fun. One of-
fers convenient transpor-
tation, the other excitement and
thrills. But in combining the two
via the introduction 14 years ago
of the world's first maxi-scooter -
the 500cc parallel-twin TMAX - Ya-
maha ended up concocting some-
thing that turned out to be the sum
of both parts.
With upwards of a quarter of
a million customers in Europe
(140,000-plus in Italy alone) for
the three different versions of the
TMAX, Yamaha has managed to
shrug off the challenge of its Japa-
nese rivals who have come to mar-
ket with bigger, heavier models
like the Burgman and Silver Wing.
Ditto for the maxi-singles from Eu-
rope and Taiwan.
So how do you make a scoot-
er sexy as well as sensible? Fun
and functional? Answer: Send it to
Sands – as in Los Angeles-based
Roland Sands Design/RSD, and
get the fusion chef of custom cool
to work his skills on it.
That's what Yamaha Europe's
product manager Shun Miyazawa
did two years ago with one of his
company's new generation 530cc
maxi-scooters. And the RSD
TMAX Hyper Modified is the result.
This "scooter" made its debut at
the 2012 Milan EICMA Show and
since then it's been on a world tour
before finally finding its way back
The Roland Sands-
built Yamaha TMAX is
like no scooter you've
ever seen or ridden.
