Yamaha Continues to Tease Us With New Tenere 700 World Raid Concept

Yamaha seems to have confirmed that some form of this off-roader will reach production at some point.

byEric Brandt|
Yamaha Continues to Tease Us With New Tenere 700 World Raid Concept
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Remember the Yamaha T7 concept that debuted at the EICMA motorcycle show in Milan last year? It was a Dakar-style bike that had great promise of extreme off-road capability that could also be used on the street. Now that the 2017 EICMA show is going on, it would have been pretty cool if Yamaha unveiled a production version of this hotly anticipated off-roader, right?

Indeed it would have, but that’s not what we got. Instead, we got the Tenere 700 World Raid prototype. In this case, “prototype” seems to mean that this bike is pretty much ready for production, but we aren’t confirming production quite yet. In Yamaha’s own words, the Tenere 700 is “a prototype model which is being used to develop the final specification of the production model.”  

That’s awfully close to confirming a new bike without actually confirming it. We don’t want to get too excited because last time we thought we were being teased about the Yamaha T7 coming to showrooms, we were dead wrong.

What sets the Yamaha Tenere 700 World Raid prototype apart from the adventure bikes currently on the market is its slim profile and low weight. Adventure bikes are usually a bit pudgy, but this Yamaha prototype is more trim to give it greater off-road performance and maneuverability.

The Tenere 700 is powered by the same 689cc CP2 parallel-twin engine we saw in the T7. It’s a specially-tuned engine derived from the one found in the popular FZ-07 naked bike. According to Yamaha, the engine “delivers a wide band of tractable and easy-to-use power that make it ideal for on and off-road adventure riding.”

Our fingers are officially crossed for whatever production bike the Yamaha Tenere 700 World Raid prototype becomes. Until we know more, enjoy this dramatic video showing off what it can do.

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