Hi guys!
I have been studying this list mentioned in the title ( https://xs11.club/forum/miscellaneou...identification) for a couple of days now. Mainly the non-US part as that is what I now the most of.
I knew from the beginning when I got on your site that there were some mistakes in this list but there weren't that many so I could not be bothered. But looking at it now I see many mistakes that must have sneeked in over the years, Certainly in good wilI, no question about that.
Some history for the interested: I know of these mistakes because when I was the president of the XS1100 club in the Netherlands we were lucky enough to get ourselves an interview in Amsterdam with Ludy Beumer from After Sales Service at Yamaha Europe which in those days shared office and warehouse with Yamaha Netherlands. Ludy Beumer was the guy responsible for developing and testing the XS1100 for Europe. During that day we visited Yamaha’s fully automated warehouse that finally worked after months of software problems and all the logistical problems caused by them. Like no orders delivered to European clients! Back in his office we heard someof his stories, like the first introduction for the media that was given in Tunesia (North-Africa) with a LOT of preproduction bikes and a lot of journalists, very interesting. Later after discussing various typical XS1100 problems I told him that we had various members from all over the world but lost count of the different models worldwide to which he kindly suggested to give us all microfiches from all models worldwide plus photocopies of them. And that is exactly what he did, a couple of days later they arrived in the mail.. So we bought us a microfiche reader and started comparing different parts between countries. Very interesting as well. Years later when the Dutch club started to diminish rapidly we decided to stop and give the XS100.com website to the rapidly growing UK club and donated all microfiches and photocopies as well. Their president in these years (Brian Bennett, better known as Lamric on this site) managed to hand type ALL numbers from all XS1100, XS750, XS850 and XS650 fiches into a database called XS Part Number Finder. Sadly when Brian passed away in March 2013 all codes and passwords that were needed to get into the software went with him and were no longer available to anyone else. This first led to the closing of the already famous Part Number page and later to closing of the entire UK XS1100.com website including the forum. Way too bad. Later I got back lots of stuff but sadly no more part number fiches. How I regret now to have never made photocopies for myself.
What I have noticed over the last years is that your above mentioned Serial Number and Model Identification list is well known and has been copied (and changed) a lot over all these years and is now presented in all different forms on a lot of XS1100 forums and Facebook pages. I’m getting tired to explain why things are wrong in these lists. The worst list I saw recently was copied from a German page (that no longer exists, I guess, as I could not find it on the internet). Except for the first and last line everything was wrong (non-US list) and the ’81 and later models were missing.
So my question really is: is it interesting enough to try and rebuild this list (preferably both US and non US models) and maybe / possibly combine it with pictures of all factory colours per model / year (preferably original Yamaha adverts / documents / folders / posters) and incorporate it again in this website. Maybe mention it on all Facebook XS1100 pages. The reason for combining model list and colours is that I think that it will clarify a lot I guess. History wise I think it is a good idea as all trustworthy XS1100 info is disappearing rapidly and that hurts, but of course you decide on that.
I surely would be willing to help and check the non-US list and communicate them with the German, French, Australian and ex-members of the Dutch club who I know have lots of info. That would leave the Canadian models to be checked.
Just some examples of mistakes from the non-US list:
1978 2H9 Crystal Sliver (missing from the list)
1979 2H9 Crystal Silver (missing from the list)
1979 2H9 Black/Gold (missing from the list)
1979 2H9 Martini (missing from the list)
1982 2H9 Indigo Blue / Pearl white (missing from the list)
Let me know what you think..
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