Exhaust badges GT80- 74 model.  This is purely a curiosity, me being a nerd and a history nut. Was the “80” at the center of the badge 
supposed to be red or white? I’ve seen both.  Both on a red model.  Any rhyme or reason?  I’m thinking I like the white actually better.  But it made me curious.  That year they were either red, or possibly yellow for the base color.
mine was a fairly deep candy red, I have seen them more fire engine too.  Just curious. The project marches along. Managed to paint headlight and oil tank while saving the decal, and matching really close original paint using duplicolor.  Gas tank another story, I rushed it and let’s just say i made a mess and wound up doing a lot of cleaning and sanding. Another go this weekend!!!

That's a good question... On the base color, yours had the stock USA "brilliant red" color for 1974. Pictures found on the Internet can be repaints and other countries often had different colors or even a choice of colors. I'm pretty sure we only had one color in the USA.

On the exhaust badge, it gets a little fuzzier... There's a good chance yours was red originally. I'm looking for original pictures back when the bike was new. Yamaha emphasized the "80" in bright red on the oil tank decal and some old (poor) photos I came across look like the US 1974 exhaust badge was red too.

On later models it was white like the bigger bikes. And the parts diagrams show one badge part for many years. If there was a red badge, Yamaha probably superseded the parts list to a white badge at some point so that doesn't help much.

I have all my boxes of old magazines packed away... maybe someone here has the answer on the badge or if I get a chance I'll try to look through the old ads for a picture of a 1974 GT80 exhaust badge color.

Thanks Mark!  I have figured the italicized 80 was red, from pics I have seen.  Seems like 80s in Europe had the white. I’m keeping mine red  I was just being curious!!

I could not find any really clear pictures of an original US 1974 exhaust badge.... the original pics I did find looked red. I did find non-US (New Zealand) brochure for 1974 and the 80 badge was definitely bright red. (They only had a choice of a blue or green-ish tank... so it wasn't that they matched the badge to the base color)

CMSNL shows the US 1974 exhaust badge as a different part number than the 75.

Since yours is an original survivor and badge is red, that's the best evidence red was original in 1974.

That’s great Mark! Thanks!! I keep plugging along but my time is more limited in the shop now. Back to work for a few weeks and day 1 of school today!!   Little at a time!