It was launched at the Cologne motorcycle show as "the nearest thing to a road going racer ever produced".

[1] It had a parallel-twin two-stroke engine with identical bore and stroke of its predecessor, the Yamaha RD350LC.

In some countries, like the US, the YPVS models were sold as Yamaha RZ350.

It was replaced by the RD350 F2 in 1986, In 1992 the production was moved to Brazil, and the model was called RD350R and was produced until 1995.

The RD500LC was the ultimate evolution of Yamaha's 2 stroke road going machinery, featuring a 500cc V4 YPVS engine.