Other Bikes
Here are some other bikes that are not Elsies, but which are relevant to her in some way.
Here is the rather spartan air-cooled RD that came immediately before Elsie. The engine size is bigger, at 400cc, but there was a little less power. More significantly, the power was prone to fade when ridden hard as the engine heated up. You can see why Yamaha introduced water cooling next. There was a 250cc version that looked the same. A 350cc and 200cc air-cooled version of a different style was also produced.
The RD400 is not as pretty as Elsie, and the chrome is prone to rust, making it look a bit scruffy when kept outdoors. You could nearly hear a sucking noise from the tank when you opened the throttle - it only did 25mpg, partly because excess fuel was used to cool the piston. That wouldn't bother you too much until you got fed up with filling up every 75 miles or so, spoiling long journeys.
Like most other RD400s, the one in the picture has after-market exhausts because the original ones rusted very quickly and can't be got now anyway.
If the RD400 was Elsie's poor parent, the TZR was the rich uncle. TZR is pronounced "Teaser". They were road bikes fashioned after Yamaha's racing TZ bikes.
After 1986, Yamaha concentrated development on the Teasers, and left Elsie in a stagnant backwater. However, old Elsie continued to sell well, and the more sophisticated Teasers never really caught on. The reason is probably because the Teasers were almost all heavily restricted in power, way below an unrestricted Elsie. Teasers underwent some major redesigns. Later models even broke away from the long Yamaha tradition of the parallel twin, and became v-twins. Before that, they got the cylinders reversed and the engine was opened up by intaking directly into the crankcase, instead of through a port in the piston. The Teasers also got lots of fashionable goodies that passed Elsie by, like upside-down forks, under-seat exhausts and an alloy frame. There is a current fad to jack-up the rear of Elsies, perhaps in an attempt to copy the look of the Teaser.
When the 250cc Elsies were wisely regulated out of reach of learners in the UK, Yamaha came up with a couple of tidlers that learners could ride. There was an 80cc and a 125cc version. The 125 was restricted to 12hp to make it legal for learners, but they could be unrestricted.
This one looks very sad, but this is typical of how they soon ended up.
What's this ? A Suzuki - how is that related to the Yamaha-produced Elsie ? Well, this 'Susie' toppled Elsie from her throne as it was quicker and handled even better. This is widely seen a making Yamaha develop the TZR road bikes, at the expense of Elsie, as Elsie was now seen to be second-best.
Today, there is a fashion to build 'specials' by grafting Suzuki RG suspension bits onto an LC.