YART throws back the years with 20th anniversary Yamaha YZF-R6 special

Has enough time passed for 1999 to be considered ‘retro’ in 2020?

Perhaps not, but two decades is arguably long enough for us to look back at the fondest of memories with a hint of rose-tinted glasses, a time when we couldn’t move for new sportsbikes hitting the market in the booming economic era when the concerns we have today seemed but a dot on a future horizon far away. Anyway, we digress…

Many of you will remember 20+ years ago when Yamaha introduced us to the YZF family in 1998, first with the full-blooded R1 sportsbike, before moving into the middleweight class with the R6 the following year.

While you don’t need to be a mathematician to recognise 1999 > 2020 doesn’t equal 20 years, we’ll overlook that in favour of looking at this special edition 20th anniversary R6 that has just been revealed by the Yamaha Austria Racing Team.

More than merely a custom, YART are Yamaha’s official Endurance World Championship outlet running the likes of Broc Parkes, Marvin Fritz, Niccolo Canepa and Loris Baz in the international series, which means the Japanese manufacturer itself would have had a hand in allowing this to come to market.

There is much to admire, with the sharp lines of the current R6 – which has all but dominated its class on the race track for some years – getting a set of new red and white decals that hark right back to the original model.

Available now for the princely sum of 19,999euros (approx. £18,000), it’s quite the hike over the standard £12,221 for what seems limited largely to a paint job, but it does make us wonder why these hues aren’t available for all of us!