Remember the Yamaha Tesseract? The four-wheeled concept is about as close to a motorcycle that something with four wheels can get. And now, the Tuning Fork brand is building upon that idea, but with a fully enclosed vehicle concept that picks up where the Tesseract left off.
Called the Yamaha MWC-4, this four-wheeled concept brings the idea of the Tesseract’s leaning chassis and multi-wheel design into a more practical form for everyday use, and it’s debuting at the 2017 Tokyo Motor Show.
Yamaha has been exploring a great deal with leaning multi-wheel (LMW) designs, as have other brands, which even lead Asphalt & Rubber to dub last year as The Year of the Leaning Multi-Wheeler, because of all the LMW concepts that debuted at the various trade shows of 2016.
Unlike the three-wheeled MWT-9 concept, which was based off the Yamaha FZ-09 motorcycle, the MWC-4 has two wheels fore and aft that are set on a very narrow wheelbase – part of what Yamaha calls “Half-Sized Mobility.”
Locomotion is produced by an electric motor that is equipped with a range-extender, which we presume to mean a petrol-powered generator.
Yamaha says that the MWC-4 has “attitude-control technology” that gives “a ride that feels like nothing else and a level of comfort not found with a conventional motorcycle.” We have no idea what that means.
Nor do we know how the styling of the MWC-4 can be inspired by both motorcycles and musical instruments, but there it is…right there in the press release, so…
Moving along, it’s clear from the Yamaha MWC-4 concept and other creations by the various Japanese brands that the ideas behind vehicles that borrow attributes from both motorcycles and cars are being heavily considered for the future of transportation.
The proof in the validity of these pursuits can be already found in the strong-selling Polaris Slingshot, a three-wheeled motorcycle that has been successful in creating the new autocar category in the United States.
Keep an eye on this space. The idea of a multi-wheeled leaning vehicle isn’t going away, and we don’t think it will be long until we see one in production form.
Source: Yamaha
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