The second blow from Yamaha India came in the form of the newly launched FZ16. Varad More takes the FZ16 for a spin to see if she has what it takes to bring back the glory days like the good’ol Yamahas did…

“Hey! It’s 6.00pm right now. Let’s catch a movie at 6.45pm at Adlabs? Say what guys?” Heads nod in agreement. The dudes hop onto their motorcycles with the pretty-young-things as pillions and off they go. This is the generation, which demands something cool, hip and stylish. Every thing that they ever want has “Cool” as its USP – something that screams “Look at me!” And the Yamaha FZ16 delivers that in best possible way. My very first ride astride the FZ16 on the streets of Pune had me bathing in envious looks and enquiring stares.

Needless to say how much I enjoyed all that attention I got from the fellow commuters and passersby, including a lot of women (Guys are you listening?) – the FZ16 caught the fancy of everyone. Just like the YZF-R15, once again this is the design genius of Yamaha’s consultant firm GK Dynamics. They have played a pivotal role in styling and designing most of the Yamaha motorcycles for all these years. And the FZ16 only bares testimony to the fact as to why Yamaha hands over most of its projects to the Tokyo-based firm.