Looking Back and to the Future at the Same Time
The Yamaha XT 500 was an awesome enduro that was basically indestructible. With minimal maintenance, you could cross about anything. Yamaha wanted to imagine an XT 500 of the future so it commissioned motorcycle designer Maxime Lefebvre to imagine one. After three iterations he came up with the Yamaha XT 500 H2O Concept. It runs on water.
Yep, according to Autoevolution, the bike has an innovative water pump engine that sends water through a high-pressure system to spin the back wheel. This form of propulsion is said to be inexhaustible. Not surprisingly, the details are unknown, which means they likely don’t exist.
Anyway, the cool-looking but likely impossible water-powered engine (it runs on water, man!) is just part of this interesting design, though. The rest of the bike is super futuristic. There are sharp angles on the body, white tire, large disc brakes with Yamaha calipers, and the front fork has an unconventional design that is not attached like a typical motorcycle. Autoevolution speculates there’s an electric motor that actually moves the front fork and steering wheel (power steering). That motor is hidden up under the frame.
Overall, this is a truly inventive look at what a future enduro could be. What I find most interesting is that it still does look like an enduro motorcycle albeit a weird one. The overall structure and lines of the bike are more or less the same. I’d even say it actually looks like an XT 500. So, Lefebvre succeeded. Now, Yamaha, make that water-powered engine a reality.
