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Italy's Carabinieri has our hat tip for having one of the meanest motorcycles in their fleet.

Yamaha kick-started its “Yamaha for Police” program back in 2015 and the motorcycles you see above, the Yamaha Tracer 9 GT, are a part of the same program. These motorcycles have been tailored to the Italian Carabinieri, which deals with domestic and foreign duties. The word Carabinieri roughly translates to English as The Reputable or the Meritorious. And for the squad, Yamaha has modified a few Tracer 9 motorcycles to make them fit for the job.

We have already talked about our love for the Yamaha Tracer 9 as it is a great value-for-money Sports Tourer and which, we believe, deserves more attention amongst the other greatest Yamaha motorcycles ever made.

Nevertheless, now that the Yamaha Tracer 9 is set for duty as Carabinieri, it has become a lot cooler than ever before.

The Tracer 9s for the Carabinieri come with flashing beacons and LED lights that are mounted on a telescopic pole with manual extensions. Additionally, it also gets a double pair of LED flashers that are integrated into the stock windshield. The motorcycle also comes with sirens which consist of a set of low-profile neodymium loudspeakers, both a master and a slave system. It comes with an electric module with a water-tight panel that gets back-lit buttons.

The entire setup is designed in partnership with INTAV Srl. Needless to say, the motorcycles come with the Carabinieri’s livery, which is black and red. Now, while looks are subjective, we are glad to see that the motorcycle looks less like a cop bike and more like a special edition.

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The Tracer 9 GT is powered by a newly developed 0.9-liter liquid-cooled three-cylinder, DOHC, four-valve-per-cylinder fuel-injected (YCC-T) engine. It has a compression ratio of 11.5:1 that is aimed at providing strong power delivery characteristics. Yamaha says that almost all the fundamental elements from the pistons and connecting rods to the crankshaft, camshafts and crankcase, have all been redesigned.

Additionally, the fuel delivery system on the Tracer 9 has been completely tweaked. For the unaware, the former Tracer 9 GTs had fuel injectors that were attached directly to the cylinder head, but in the new iteration, the fuel injectors are now attached to the throttle valve side of the throttle bodies.

The injectors now spray at the back of the intake valve heads to promote atomization of the fuel and reduce adhesion of fuel particles to the port walls, producing great combustion efficiency. Yamaha has stated that the throttle valve is now operated by Yamaha’s Chip Controlled Throttle (YCC-T) electronic system which has proven itself on YZF series models as well as the earlier Tracer 9 GT models.

The Tracer 9 GT also gets an Assist and Slipper (A&S) clutch that is tuned to match the new engine for a lighter clutch lever pull and smoother chassis behavior during downshifts.

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The Tracer 9 GT is built around a newly developed lightweight aluminum frame with model-specific tuning. It also gets a new, longer swingarm that is now located inside the frame. It has a boxed construction formed by welding together aluminum plates.

The motorcycle rides on lightweight wheels that are manufactured using Yamaha’s exclusive spin forging technology. The company claims that the wheels have a notable 11 percent decrease in the momentum of inertia at the rear.

The new Tracer 9 gets a new radial Nissin master cylinder for the front brake. The piston in the master cylinder moves in a direction parallel to brake lever travel.

The suspension apparatus is developed with KYB and comes as an electronically controlled unit. The setup derives input from the six-axis Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), the Engine Control Unit (ECU), and the Hydraulic Unit (HU) and then the Suspension Control Unit (SCU) calculates the optimum settings for suspension damping.

Yamaha says that the damping adjustment mechanism is solenoid-driven which enables changes to the damping force to be reflected quickly. This kind of setup generates a steady damping force even when the suspension piston is moving slower. The electronically controlled system controls the rebound and compression damping for the front fork and rebounds damping for the rear shock.

The Tracer 9 GT suspension also comes with two modes: Sport (A-1) and Comfort (A-2). The Sport mode is aimed at sporty riding on dry roads but can also accommodate wet conditions. Comfort mode is mostly made to provide a comfortable ride on rough asphalt roads or roads with potholes.

The Tracer 9 GT comes with 3.5-inch full-color TFT displays. The left-hand display includes a bar-type tachometer that changes colors as rpm rises or falls, the fuel gauge, average mileage indicator, water temperature, air temperature, and a gearshift indicator while the right-hand screen enables the selection of four different types of information or indicators to allow more information to be displayed at once. Switching between displays and information can be performed with the handlebar switches.

Additional safety features come in the form of a lean angle-sensitive traction control system, lift control system, MotoGP-developed slide control system, brake control system with ABS, quick shifter, ride by throttle system, and cruise control.

Source: Yamaha, Yamaha Tracer 9 GT

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