Next generation Yamaha R125 / R15 spied with R7-style front-end

The fourth generation of the Yamaha R15 has been spotted in India sporting a design that borrows heavily from the recently-launched Yamaha R7.

Though the R15 - with its 150cc engine - isn’t sold in Europe, the sister Yamaha R125 version with a 125cc engine is and is likely to be almost identical in design.

Captured by Abhinav Bhatt in India, Delhi, who promptly posted it to his YouTube channel (video embedded below), the eagle-eyed spotter not only recognised this would be a motorcycle worth snapping but even recognised what it was and why it is significant.

Indeed, though we needed to get our specs out to identify the camouflaged model through his windscreen, he correctly states that it is the Yamaha R15, a model that is built in Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, and is one of Yamaha’s best performing models from a range that in India doesn’t stray above 250cc.

Nevertheless, it looks to have received some ‘big bike’ inspiration in its styling, with Mr Bhatt turning the camera around once he had overtaken the bike to get a glimpse of the front-end.

Though hard to capture in a still, you can clearly see it has adopted the circular central headlight unit and air inlet fins that debuted on the R7, a ‘warm sportsbike’ that will hit European markets in the coming weeks.

With the design also paying homage to the new MT-09 revealed last year, it would suggest it is a look that will be broadly adopted across Yamaha’s premier R and MT ranges.

To date, only the MT-09, MT-07 and R7 have been given an update in recent months, but the R15/R125 will likely preview how the R3 / MT-03 and MT-125 will also look like when they make their bow.

It remains to be seen whether the flagships of the faired/naked ranges - the high-performance R1 and MT-10 - will also follow suit when they are launched, potentially in the next 12-18 months.