What to buy and how much to pay

All genuine UK AS3S appear to have been supplied in red/white, but elsewhere Yamaha supplied them in orange/white, with a fair number also in blue/white. There’s also supposedly a small batch that arrived in turquoise, although ‘ Yamoraks’ sometimes question if this wasn’t just a ‘ bad batch of paint’. Regardless of hue, don’t pay more for an example in ‘ rarer’ orange or blue. If you buy one in boxes, mount the tank and seat on the frame and check they fit correctly as a pair; early and late models, plus some imports, run different dimensions. Later RD125 or 200 seats will fit, but the gap at the front is wrong. Get a parts book and research what you need outside of just AS3. Various parts are shared over a wide range of smaller Yamahas and note that the bike was sold as the AX125 in SE Asia. Top-end examples can fetch anywhere between £5000-£6500, if all the components are genuine and not pattern. This reflects just how rare these bikes are. Decent tidy runners showing

signs of use are at least £2500 and go up from there; for this money it’s also likely to require a crank rebuild, but if it is all correct then in the AS3 world this is a bargain. Complete project examples start at £1000 and can easily get to £1500 if all the key parts are present, yet scabby. If there’s one key piece of advice it’s this – even seasoned

Yamaha restorers know that the AS3 is one of the most difficult 70s stroker twins to restore.

Bear that in mind before throwing money at something that’s missing the hard-to-find components and marvel at just how much this iconic tiddler is now worth!