If you don’t see the tuning fork logo on the side of this 1965 Yamaha MG1-T Omaha Trail Master, it’s easy to mistake for a Honda. After all, Honda made about a billion variants of the Cub over the years, and this could totally be one of them. Thing it, it’s not. It’s a Yamaha. See, during the Cub’s heyday, Team Blue wanted a piece of Team Red’s sweet, sweet Cub action. It’s not hard to understand why, since at that point Honda was in the midst of welcoming all kinds of new riders to the joys of two wheels. How better to get your bikes to sell than to build your ideal market from scratch?
Yamaha put out a few things it called Trailmasters in the 1960s. The YG-T Trailmaster 80, for example, boasted more serious off-roading ability, with its knobby tires and upswept pipe. While the Omaha Trail probably wouldn’t leave you dying of dysentery in a national park somewhere, it clearly wasn’t as trail-ready as some of its descendants would turn out to be.
A Different Kind Of Trail-er:
This MG1-T features an 80cc two-stroke single and a four-speed transmission. It comes with a tool roll (!), the original owner’s manual, a clean Arizona title, and copies of the original sales receipt and Idaho title from 1974. The seller acquired it in 2020 as a barn find, and it’s had a recent service that included an oil change. Although the odometer shows 980 miles, actual mileage is unknown.
Gallery: 1965 Yamaha MG1-T Omaha Trail
It both starts and runs well, as you can see in the video. It’s currently located in Queen Creek, Arizona, and is up for auction on Bring A Trailer with no reserve. Price at the time of writing is $500, and the auction ends on Wednesday, June 3, 2020. If you want something a little different from the Cubs and Honda trailies that seem to show up for sale regularly, this might just be the step-through, 1960s blast from the past that you’re seeking.
Sources: Bring A Trailer, YouTube, Rider Magazine