If you’re looking for a new supersports 600 bike in 2017 the options will be few and far between but Yamaha’s R6 might be back with a vengeance next year.
Honda has already confirmed that the CBR600RR won’t be immediately replaced when the current model is forced out of showrooms by next year’s Euro4 emissions rules. Similarly, Suzuki only has plans to sell small numbers of its existing GSX-R600 under ‘derogation’ rules that allow manufacturers to clear stocks of machines that don’t comply with the new emissions limits.
The future of other offerings like Kawasaki’s ZX-6R, Triumph’s Daytona 675 and MV’s F3 675 are also in question. But the Yamaha R6 might be one of the few 600cc supersports machines to be revamped and reengineered to meet the new emission limits.
This new teaser video from Yamaha doesn’t tell us much other than the fact it’s got a new ‘R’ series bike coming next year, and that we’ll see it at Intermot on October 4. However, the screaming engine sound accompanying the video hints that it could be a new R6. It certainly doesn’t sound like an R1, which is expected to get only mild mods for 2017 to reduce its emissions to the new limit.
What could Yamaha be doing? One option is that it is, indeed, a new R6. However, making a 600cc four-cylinder engine that meets the Euro4 limits while producing the 130bhp-plus performance needed in the supersports class is a hard engineering job. Buyers will expect power to increase over the existing bike, not to drop. Making a clean 600cc engine will require huge investment.
Such investment could pay off. While 600cc supersports sales worldwide have been sluggish in recent years, that’s in part due to the lack of new models. Few machines in the class have any of the traction control technology that’s expected on high-end bikes, and most haven’t changed in years. With other manufacturers deserting that part of the market, and 1000cc superbikes getting ever more extreme, a company offering a brand new, high-tech 600 in an otherwise deserted class could clean up, both in racing and in sales.
Another possibility is that this isn’t an R6 at all. For a far smaller investment than that needed to make an emissions-legal 600cc supersports engine, Yamaha could create a bigger-capacity version of its old R6 unit that would be both cleaner-running and more powerful. Of course, it wouldn’t be race-legal, but other firms – Kawasaki with the 636cc ZX-6R and MV Agusta with the F3 800, for instance – are already showing that there’s scope to sell bikes outside the conventional capacity classes. And of course the GSX-R750 keeps selling better than its 600cc sibling.
So rather than a new R6, could we be looking at an R7 or R8? We’ll find out soon enough, with the bike due to be unveiled in just a couple of weeks’ time.
