This model was released in December 2014 as part of a huge diorama representing motorcycle rallying, in particular the Dakar (formerly Paris-Dakar) Rally. The diorama contains two motorcycles, the 1995 XTZ850R and 2014 YZ450F and their riders, in a setting representing sand dunes in one half and a rocky wilderness in the other. The motorcycles are roughly the same scale as the "Ultra-Realistic" series (1:5.5) but more comparable to the "Realistic" series in complexity. The XTZ850R has 433 parts, less than half the latest "Ultra-Realistics", and of those well over 100 are taken up by the very knobbly spoked wheels.
The complete diorama comes in five PDF parts files for two motorcycles, two rider figures and the background setting. There are five corresponding PDF files of assembly instructions.
I built the model at 39% of the original size, so that it comes out the same scale as all my other Yamaha motorcycle models, i.e. 1:14.
Like the previous year's "Racing" model this had major fit problems to overcome. My impression is that the resources available for developing the model fell rather short of what was needed, and there were many last-minute modifications which were not fully checked and integrated. There were also many inconsistencies between the assembly instructions and the labelling of the parts, and between different parts of the instructions.
The main change I made to the model was the wheels and tyres. In the original design, the wheel spokes are made from paper, and substantially oversize. The tyres have a deep tread pattern represented by fabricated shaped boxes glued to the outside of the wheel rim and then partially covered by curved tyre pieces. The tread is also very oversize, almost a caricature of the real thing. I constructed spoked wheels in my usual way with thread, added an undersized tyre and built it up to size by gluing squares and rectangles of cardboard to the outside in something approximating to the original tread pattern. The front wheel has a finer tread than the rear, and required 270 small squares, each 1.5x1.5x0.8mm in size.
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