For serial wrenchers who can’t wait to get their next fix or their next motorcycle to tinker with, restoration videos are a sort of appetizer or substitute before or instead of the real thing, respectively. Grab a bag of chips for this one because it’s 17 minutes of restoration from start to finish of a 1982 Yamaha Virago 750.
Yamaha first introduced the Virago 750, which was also known as the XV750, in 1981. The model’s production spanned from 1981 to 1983 then it stopped. The Virago was brought back into production in 1988, and its run lasted all the way until 1998. The Virago is actually Yamaha’s first V-Twin cruiser nameplate, but like many Japanese cruisers, the Virago name ended up kind of forgotten, and not really listed in the Hall of Fame—so to speak—in the Yamaha stable.
Now let’s look at one from the first production run. This Virago 750 spent a good chunk of its life in pieces, and it’s likely that many more pieces were missing, in need of repair, or totally separated from the chassis. Important things like, oh I don’t know, the engine was out of the frame, rusted and dilapidated.
Cafe&Bikes took this particular example in and turned the tables on its supposed fate. The project’s goal was to turn it into a cafe racer of sorts, and it took two years for the bike to come together as stated in the video description: “1982 Yamaha Virago XV750 Caferacer Full Timelapse Build. Bike was completely taken apart and built in the past [two] years at the shop. Lots of customization from front to back.”
After everything was said and done, there was almost no hint of cruiser left in the build. It was turned into a totally sick cafe racer. The bike even got an inverted fork and a new set of pipes, and perhaps its most striking feature is the bicycle-style seat. I can’t actually believe that this used to be a cruiser.
