Hey y'all, I wanted to ask for some opinions on a book I found. 

Back story for this, I've been doing some digging recently for a little bit more info on a RT1 I have. I posted on here a while back (a couple years ago actually) about the VIN on my RT1 not being within the range of VIN's in the tables here in the tech section. Because of college I slowed down on most of my enduro projects, but I recently started the process of getting a title for this RT1 and that re-started my quest for information a little more info on it!

I stumbled upon a link to a PDF copy of a book titled "Motorcycle Identification" that was published in 1986. It appears to be very thorough, and according to the acknowledgement page, the only manufacturer that didn't want to give them VIN information was Harley Davidson! It shows where to find the VIN on different motorcycle brands, and talks about the difference between pre and post 1981 VINs. Most interesting to me however, is that the majority of the book is a list of the VIN numbers for different manufacturers. Most of the VINs in the book do match up to what is in the tech section here, but it seems that some models have additional numbers in the range.

For example, with the 1970 RT1M VINs, the table in the tech section here goes from RT1-50101 to 52226, and in this book the numbers start at the same point but go to RT1-97218. The part that is making me question the book is that range encompasses the 1971 RT1B Close Ratio transmission VINs according to the tech section here. 

Here is the link to the PDF of the book

Figured I would throw the link and some info here and ask what y'all think. Does it seem accurate and or reputable?

Thanks!

I think that your reference is wrong on that one entry for the 1970 RT1M. The reference book lists about 47,000 vin numbers for the 1970 RT1M, ending with 97218. I doubt Yamaha made that many RT1Ms. That last serial number is the same as the last 1970 DT1CM, serial number range DT1-95101 to 97218. I have a 1970 DT1CM with a serial number 970XX. I think the reference book is in error for the last serial number for the 1970 RT1M. I believe the serial number data here on this website for the 1970 DT1M and RT1M.

JayB, that is a good point! I did not catch that with the ending number being the same as the DT1CM. I would agree that 47,000 RT1Ms would be quite a lot!

From all my research it seems that there is very little publicly available info on JDM VINs so looks like some further digging is required to get closer to a possible answer.

I tried contacting Yamaha Motorsports Customer Service to ask for information, but according to the rep I talked to, the data available to them only goes to the 1990s, and I was told that there is no person or department I could talk to for historical or archived things!

I didn't look at the link but that VIN book sounds like the one written for law enforcement.  It is a decent resource but not completely accurate.  

The VIN tables here were assembled by an expert from historical Yamaha documents and are the most accurate available.  

Unfortunately, the vast majority of available docs...  including parts lists and service manuals...  are for the "US Market".  And even those docs have some mistakes and typos.  Hopefully someday someone will find a stash of Yamaha Japan and/or other country documentation.