Since modern motorcycles are far more complex than their predecessors, it makes them harder to customize. But a few bikes buck that trend?like the Yamaha MT-07, and the MT-derived XSR700.
The MT engine and its requisite plumbing are a little cluttered to the eye, but it’s a hella peachy mill, packed into an equally playful chassis. And the rest of the bike’s put together like a Meccano set, making it fun to pull apart and reconfigure. So it’s no surprise that leading custom shops have been producing bolt-on MT-07 and XSR700 kits.

?The Young Jerk? is a tight and focused rework on the MT-07, and comes from star builder Jeremy Tagand at Deus Ex Machina in Sydney, Australia. Yamaha Australia commissioned it as a one-off?but once Jeremy got cracking, he decided to take it a step further and use the build as a prototype for a bolt-on kit. This new kit will fit either the MT or the XSR, in your choice of fiberglass or carbon fiber.

Jeremy started off by putting a call in to fellow Frenchman Simon Dabadie at Dab Design, to help him visualize his ideas. Simon has history with Yamaha builds, and laid down a 2D rendering of the concept; a street tracker, with a monocoque body that would fit over the Yamaha’s OEM frame and fuel reservoir.
Next, the MT-07 went off to Greg Kerba at Sydney Composite, to create the mold for the fiberglass body.

Greg started by stripping the bike down and 3D scanning it, so that there’d be a digital version of the bike t...