Tell you what,won't there be some FZ1's at the right money ? I think you'll get a new one for around £ 6500/7000.You could put all kinds of goodies on it,Gillies rearsets,acropovic can,trick levers,etc for another grand,what a tool that would make for the money! Is the MT10 worth upwards of £3000 more?
Ah, the age old question of value versus desirability. Yes, a heavily modded FZ1 would be a weapon, but you'd be putting money into a bike that will be less desirable in 3 years time. Is it worth it? I dunno, the Gen 1 was worth modding because it was (and still is!) such characterful and usable bike, but the FZ1, not so much. Simon Hargrieves built a very rapid Fazer and PB featured another naked FZ1 which was excellent, but I think it'd only be worth doing the same to a bargain second hand FZ1, not a new one.
The MT-10 brings Yamaha's street bike bang up to date to compete head on with the BMW S1000R and Tuono V4 and there's a lot of value in that.... as Dek with the S1R suggests.
It was also interesting to compare the Tuono to the MT. The MT's design, fit and finish is incredibly precise. Just looking at the routing of pipes for the oil cooler, water pump and so on - the clearances between them and the engine is half a centimetre whereas on the Tuono it's more like one centimetre. It's so compact every item looks almost like a it should be on life size Tamiya model.
And it has obviously been designed to be accessorised to death. The tiny guard for the clocks is held on with four big fasteners so that's going to be dead easy for aftermarket guys to create screens for, and the rear end is the same. Four screws and the numberplate hanger gets swapped out for a rack or a better looking hanger. In fact, the rear end looks like they just gave up, styling wise. There's not much of it either, so pillions will hate it. Those weird triangular lumps either side of the radiator hold the coolant overflow bottles, by the way. They probably help direct air at the rad too, but they are odd looking.
From a distance, it doesn't look that special, but close up, you can see it's an R1M, and that's not so very different from Rossi's bike. Honestly, looking at it close up, it's deeply desirable.
I had a sit on the KTM Superduke GT too, Tmation. Very very comfy, 23 litre tank, honking great 1300 twin, nearly as much power and torque as my ZZR1400 but way lighter.... It'll be an utter weapon on the road, I think.