SuperBike Magazine June 2020

88 YAMAHA R6
1999 YAMAHA YZF-R6
ROCKETS
FROM THE CRYPT
Nowadays, all 600cc supersports bikes are lithe, light and ultracompact;
we expect nothing less. The R6 set the standard in 1999
Words & Pics: Roland Brown
Supersports middleweights
as we know and
love ’em began in 1999
with the launch of the
original YZF-R6. There
had been quick 600s before, of
course: CBRs, GSX-
Rs Yamaha’s own
“It was ultralight
and had
a masochistic
love of being
thrashed”
FZR600R among
them. But until the
R6 arrived with its
120bhp motor, ultra-light
aluminium
frame and masochistic
love of being
thrashed, there had
never been a middleweight
that put all-conquering
speed so far ahead of every other
consideration.
It was all Kunihiko Miwa’s
doing. After stunning the twowheeled
world with the YZF-R1,
a year earlier, Yamaha’s top streetbike
engineer might have taken a
few months off to ride bikes, drink
sake or play golf. Instead, he’d
been beavering away to create
the no-compromise
weapon, which lived
up to its unofficial
billing as ‘Son of R1’.
The R6’s statistics
were more
impressive than a
Dutch porn star’s.
That 120bhp output
combined with a
claimed dry weight
of 169kg to make the R6 not just
the most powerful and lightest
600 but the first production
motorcycle to produce 200bhp per
litre (even if those claims would
Minds were blown on the Australia launch of the R6: Here was a bike
with the handling and revviness of a 250 but the power of a class-leading
600 – unknown pleasures!
120bhp
An overblown claim,
perhaps, but the R6 did
produce 100bhp-plus at the
wheel – a big deal in 1999
Weighing in at 169kg
and producing upwards
of 100bhp at the back
wheel, there was a lot to
like about the original
R6