Would you buy a 300cc Yamaha Ténéré? Yamaha itself is pondering the idea. In an interview with Italian-based motorcycle magazine, Motociclismo, Product Communications Manager for Yamaha Italy, Fabrizio Corsi, said Yamaha will be ready if the market demands it.
A journalist brought up the fact that competitors like BMW and KTM have small displacement adventure bikes in the form of the G310 GS and 390 Adventure, respectively. Naturally, he asked if Yamaha was considering the new segment.
The reply was shockingly candid, but shouldn’t come as a surprise. Yamaha has been busy making the most of its platforms, whether it’s the 900cc (MT-09, Tracer 900, XSR900), 700cc (MT-07, XSR700) and more recently the 155cc class (MT-15, YZF-R15, XSR155). A 300cc Ténéré shouldn’t be too difficult to produce considering Yamaha’s 300cc is already being put to good use in the YZF-R3 and MT-03. A Ténéré 300, or XSR300 for that matter, wouldn’t be too difficult to produce.
In the 300cc adventure class, the Ténéré’s most direct competitor would be the two mentioned, plus the Kawasaki Versys-X 300. There’s also Honda’s CB400X with a bit of a power advantage.
For now, nothing is planned or in production yet. However, considering how quickly we got an XSR155, it doesn’t take long for Yamaha to act.
