Introduced for the 2018 model year, this nameplate marked Yamaha’s entry into the large-displacement Leaning Multi-Wheel category. It was first shown publicly in 2017 as a production-intent sport LMW and reached market launch in 2018, becoming the company’s first big-capacity road-going model with two front wheels. Yamaha positioned it as a machine aimed at combining the cornering confidence and stability of the LMW concept with the feel of a conventional sport motorcycle, rather than as a novelty or commuter derivative.
The model’s significance lies in how it translated Yamaha’s LMW research into a full-size premium street motorcycle. It followed the smaller Tricity family in Yamaha’s multi-wheel development path, but it was the first to use that architecture in a higher-performance, long-distance-oriented format. In Yamaha’s own product and company materials, it is treated as a flagship expression of the LMW idea and remains part of the brand’s motorcycle lineage. A touring-focused NIKEN GT variant later expanded the concept, but that does not change the original nameplate’s 2018 debut as the starting point of the series.