Yamaha Tesseract four-wheeled motorcycle in development? [w/video]

The Yamaha Tesseract from the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show is still one of our favorite concept vehicles ever created... both for the sheer lunacy of its appearance and ingeniousness of its design. If you happen to agree with our judgement, we have some good news: recent patent filings indicate that Yamaha may actually intend to build something like this for production.

There are some differences worth noting that separate the machine described in the patent documents from the actual Tesseract concept, notably the use of a parallel twin engine instead of a V-twin and dual shafts driving the rear wheels instead of chains. It's that latter item that makes us think Yamaha might actually be developing this machine, as those conceptual chains would be a nightmare to keep sorted and matched in real life.

Before you get too excited, though, now would be a good time to remind you that a vehicle like the Tesseract would never be sold in the United States... at least not for road use. Because it has four wheels, the Tesseract would be classified as an automobile (though it is most definitely a motorcycle in every meaningful sense), and that means it would need to pass crash and safety testing. Suffice it to say there's no chance in purgatory that the machine would make it through that nightmarish legislative process.

Still, we can dream. And we can also gaze at the pretty pictures in our image gallery and even watch a rendered video of the concept in action. Find it after the break.