This Japanese Bike Is The Luxury Bargain Nobody Talks About
There are some motorcycles out there that warrant a second look long after they’re gone. Many times, these motorcycles were near perfect for what they had to offer, but sadly, they didn’t get a say in how long they stayed on sale. And when the parent company decides its fate, it’s a disheartening story to tell. Thankfully, a slumping economy does have the power to bring such a motorcycle back into the spotlight, with a second lease of life, only this time from its previous owners. Passing them on to new garages, bikes like luxury touring bikes can make dreams come true at a bargain price. One such bike from Yamaha strongly resonates today.
The Price Of Admission To Full-Dress Touring Luxury Is Quite High
Full-dress touring luxury has never been cheap. And the Honda Gold Wing with its flat-six probably ranks high on your wishlist. After all, it’s the motorcycle that has set the benchmark for the segment for years. A feature-rich top-shelf tourer like that packs a plethora of creature comforts rarely found on other genres of motorcycles.
But high-end features today push the price tag well past what a decent used car would cost, so a luxury-touring motorcycle is most definitely an aspirational purchase rather than a necessity. Even Japanese bikes, known to be reliable as well as affordable, package these features at an eye-watering price point. Cruisers aren’t spared either when it comes to being exquisite and unique, albeit only becoming affordable much after their production ends.
The mention of Yamaha brings up performance-focused everyday bikes like the MT-09, or sport tourers like the Tracer 9, or even affordable cruisers like the Bolt R-Spec, but luxury touring? That’s when you start looking elsewhere. Except when you dig around its past offerings in America, a name comes up under its Star brand. The bike came standard with a piece of engineering Yamaha still likes to point out — an electric motor built solely to creep the machine forward and backward at walking pace, something even the Harley flagships don’t offer to date.
The 2018 Yamaha Star Venture Is The Full-Dress Luxury Tourer That Was Left Behind
Announced in 2017 and brought out as a 2018 model, the Yamaha Star Venture, at the time, was a flagship-grade full-dress tourer that, frankly, no one had expected from Yamaha. And it wasn’t even a facelift or adaptation of anything Yamaha had built before. The company tore up the old Royal Star Venture’s playbook entirely and started from a blank sheet for a bike that it was assumed that only Honda or Harley bothered building properly. With prices ranging from $24,999 for the base spec to $26,999 for the Transcontinental options bundle, Yamaha undercut both manufacturers by enough of a margin to attract attention.
A 1,854cc Air-Cooled V-Twin That Could Keep Up With American Heavyweights
Starting with a blank sheet meant that Yamaha even went to the extent of creating a brand-new engine for the Star Venture. As all American big cruisers and tourers should be, a V-twin was decided upon and brought to life. Displacing 1,854cc through a 100mm bore and a long 118mm stroke, it had the kind of proportions that build a lot of low-end torque that’s well suited to a touring-focused bike.
The 126 lb-ft of pure muscle of torque came in just a little over idle at 2,500 rpm, which meant that when the Star Venture got rolling, it would pull its near-1,000 lb wet weight with a sense of purpose and might. The power was delivered through a six-speed gearbox, of which the fifth and sixth gears were overdrive, and a belt final drive was put in place.
Big V-twins dominate the cruiser segment, and for a big-displacement V-twin, two counterbalancers kept the vibration in check without erasing the very character of a big V-twin that makes them endearing. The fuel-injected V-twin would breathe through four valves per cylinder, and Yamaha’s own ride-by-wire throttle let the rider flick between a smoother touring map and a sharper one on demand, with cruise control thrown in as well.
Chassis, Suspension And Brakes Were Up-To-Spec
Yamaha had enough experience building a muscle cruiser with the V-Max, so it already knew how to package the large engine and everything wrapped around it. Despite that, the Star Venture weighed 957 lbs wet, 963 with the Transcontinental package, which is an intimidating amount of mass for most riders. So Yamaha countered that with an inseam-friendly 27.4-inch seat height that made handling a static Star Venture much easier, let alone once on the move.
A 46mm KYB fork up front paired with a single rear shock on a remote preload adjuster were tuned soft enough to soak up a rough patch of interstate without unsettling the bike. Stopping all that weight fell onto dual 298mm front discs with four-piston calipers and a 320mm rear disc, both running Yamaha’s Unified Brake System, so a squeeze of either lever would automatically actuate both brakes for confident stopping power.
Sure-Park, Audio, And The Luxury Kit That Justified The Price Tag
Beyond the engine, the Star Venture was packed with features that no rival touring bike offered at the time. Like Sure-Park, which employed an electric motor that worked via a handlebar switch and made the big tourer creep forward or backward at walking pace. In fact, the Walk Mode that’s a popular Gold Wing feature now came only a few months later in 2017. A 7-inch touchscreen ran the infotainment, paired with Bluetooth, and featured voice commands as well as Pandora music streaming.
Comfort came from heated grips, seats, and backrests for both riders, adjustable across ten levels, plus an electric windscreen made it easy to adjust wind blast levels depending on how hot or cold the ambient temperatures are. Yamaha’s Smart Key unlocked the luggage and fuel cap without a physical key, while the saddlebags and trunk added up to 37.3 gallons of weatherproof hard storage.
What A Well-Kept Used Star Venture Costs Today
Yamaha’s touring greatness was short-lived, built for just four model years, announcing its end in 2020 with the 2021 model year as the last one off the production line. This unusually short run for a flagship-grade tourer is also the very reason that makes it hard to remember, but on the flip side, it makes for a great used touring bike purchase. And one might think that its used values would’ve plummeted with the demise of the brand, but you’d be wrong.
JD Power values a well-kept 2018 base model at $16,385 today, well below its $24,999 price tag for the base model, marking a drop of just over a third of its value eight years later. The Transcontinental package holds a touch better at $17,350, still substantially lower than what a new flagship tourer costs in 2026, and one that holds better value than a used Indian Roadmaster.
Step down to a rougher 2020 example, and the floor drops further still, as low as $11,898, and averaging around $14,900 on Cycle Trader. That’s incredible value for a luxury tourer that’s not all that old while holding its own against the best of tourers out there. What separates it today isn’t horsepower or touchscreens or even features alone, but it’s the depreciation curve that turned an already competitive bike into the cheaper way to own one.
Source: Yamaha
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