Tilt-a-Whirl: Yamaha's Three Wheeler

The knock on three wheeled machines from motorcycle riders has always been that they don’t lean. In the case of the Spyder this makes for an extremely stable vehicle albeit one that can be more physically challenging to ride at speed when the leaning ability truly helps. Piaggio hit the forefront of leaning three wheels with the MP3 scooter. It was an odd little machine when it arrived as many of us had never seen anything like it. It looked a little ungainly but it worked surprisingly well. Yamaha has put a new spin on the idea with the concept MWT-9. Take the motor from the FJ-09 and put it in a decidedly sporty chassis – but one with two wheels up front. Those two front wheels are surprising far apart and the front forks are placed well to the outside which Yamaha claims allows for the maximum cornering ability. It will be very interesting to see the MWT-9 in action to gauge just how far over the machine will lean and what advantages it would truly have over a sport oriented two wheeler. On the surface it appears a very complicated and technical answer to a question yet to be asked – but that is what concepts are for.