Robert E. Lee and The Yankee

Whoa ….as your new president says, “Let us come together.” Well, that’s what happened when I had the chance to work on a little project called the Yankee Half-Miler. There are probably very few of you who even remember the short life of the Yankee (1969 – 1972). It originally was sold as what we call today a Dualsport – street legal trail bike. The bike was kind of different from the start since it was a 500cc twin cylinder 2 stroke, and ugly as a newborn.

Now what prompted this little stroll down memory lane was when Bob M. dropped me an email and invited me to go with him just north of town to his friend Ed’s shop. Ed is a very interesting motorcycle enthusiast. Ed has a huge workshop in his back yard which has at least 200 motorcycles from the past. Can you say BSA, CZ, Hodaka, Bultaco, and oh yes, Yankee? As I stumbled around like a blind dog in a meathouse looking at all the neat bikes, I came across the weathered 500cc Yankee. Man, did the stories and BS start to fly.

I remember when the ugly beast arrived back in 1971, and all the measuring, cutting, welding, and fabricating started. This was going to be a labor of love. We worked everyday all day long for about a month before we came up with something looking like a half-miler. The test proved that this would work, much to our surprise. This monster had tons of horsepower and a wide power band. It was winter and the pro half-mile races didn’t start until spring, so we made a fateful decision to convert the half-miler into a TT Scrambler since the Astrodome TT National was just 6 weeks away. We installed front brakes and moved one of the two expansion chambers from the right side to the left and voila – a TT Scrambler. NOT. As it turned out, with all our half-mile mods, the thing just didn’t work as planned on the tight left and right turns inside the Dome. Come spring, the Yankee was loaded up and taken east for the opening of the half-mile season.

I was able to race this bike most of a season before Yankee stopped production and fell victim to slow production and newer designs that were much lighter. Oh well, as Sgt. Joe Friday would say, “Just another story of a million in the big city.” I’ve included some pictures of the only Yankee half-miler ever to run. Note that I’m leading the XR750 HD in one of the pics. And the beautiful red, white and blue Yankee Motor Company leathers. Thanks for listening to my ramblings!

Stay tuned for next Wednesday’s post….A Love Story. I’m not kidding.