Another bike illustrating what young people who want to ride can build in their garage while still being able to pay their student loan and/or first car. “Bolas Púrpura” (Purple Balls!) is a 1981 Yamaha XS650 Special rebuilt in the Japanese Brat style. The factory bike was completely disassembled and everything was sand blasted and powder coated. The suspension was lowered and original wheels were re-laced with stainless spokes. The gas tank is from a 1970 Yamaha GT60 and was left original to reinforce the aged look. A set of titanium wrapped custom exhaust pipes and seat pan were fabricated. A Harley CV carb is now feeding the engine. Chain and sprockets were replaced. No battery, kick start only. A ton of fun for little money. And if you don’t want to do it yourself, Samson V-Twin will do it for you.
16 Responses to “Brat Style Yamaha XS650”
Comments are currently closed.
Hope it inspires our children?
In the day if this engine had a HD logo on ithe engine casses it would have been the best engineered engine HD ever built.
They could be made to go fast in a 750 configuration and upgrades.
Shell Thuet and Kenny Roberts proven.
The concept originally was a German Horax then reconfigured by Yamaha.
I owned a 650 Yam and put 38,000+ on it. Loved the bike, but…”best engineered engine”????
The basic design…Verticle twin, firering pattern made it the worst vibrating bike I’ve ever owned. My fingers swelled up so much on a trip to sturgis that I had to have my ring cut off. Nothing to do with the engine but the seat made it all worse. After 15 moles, it was necessary to shift “cheeks” about every five miles.
S/B “After 15 miles”
Yep good memories but like Richards stated the vibe was something else. Had to buy a throttle lock in order to give relief to my wrist while doing long rides that way I could shift one wrist and rest then the next without worry of slowing down. But around town it was blast.
Would have been the best engineered engine HD ever built.. vibrator yes but so is ____
I just sold my last xs 650 this year to a guy in the mid west with less tha 7000 miles. Fun bike.
Great looking bike!
its nice to let an old bike live again from a dusty corner …
to ride the streets again good job steve
One can only hope that youngsters get away from their Video games and back into garages.
While gamer skills may be OK for military applications, today’s garage designers can get way more use out of CAD software to help design cool new scooters.
These tools are so inexpensive now there isn’t any reason not to buy them.
And the skills ya develop can translate into a good paying job.
-nicker-
This bike was done simply as a project between two brothers. The goal was to stay on a budget but to do a bike that would fit in and be interesting to the biker community, after all the XS650, was a bike most of us in our 50’s saw running along the streets as we watched in admiration, too young to be on those bikes at the time.
The Carr Brothers did this bike in a manor that may represent what a young person may have wanted or maybe might have seen in a race track of some sort during that period.
The Brat Style we believe is as close as it comes to this ideal in customs right now.
Raw, Real, and Running Fast is what this little Jewel is all about.
Steve and DeWayne Carr
Samson V-twin
Good looking cycle.
@Steve and DeWayneCarr-
Very well done. This little bike looks like it’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys. I’m also in my 50’s. My dad had numerous hotrodded XS650s and I came up on Yamaha dirt bikes with that iconic style of gas tank so this bike just pushes ALL of the right buttons for me.
Keep up the good work.
I saw this bike before, during and after. It is a cool little bike, and another example of what folks who want a cool ride without breaking the bank can build.
The price of used XS 650’s has been pretty high for worn out junk in my area in the midwest. Hope others have better luck finding one than I have. I wanted one for my son’s first motorcycle. We ended up with a Buell. Thats a very nice build.
nice bike steve carr…well done
Ah, memories !!!
Very Cool !!!