Designed as something of a poor-man’s Ducati 916, with a trellis frame clearly intended to evoke that more exotic bike, the Yamaha TRX850 is a rare and odd duck in the US. It’s far from beautiful, but possesses a chunky charisma, and although it was never imported to North America, these aren’t particularly rare overseas.…
If you’re in the market for a practical exotic that will turn heads and won’t break the bank to buy or to run, this virtually new MZ 1000S deserves a closer look. As much as we’d all probably love a garage full of weird exotica, for budgetary and space reasons, many riders are forced to…
Laverda was one of the unfortunate casualties of the Japanese onslaught of the 1970’s. Confronted by reliable, affordable multis from Suzuki, Kawasaki, Yamaha, and Honda, many Italian and British companies found themselves in dire straights, unable to compete in showrooms or on the street. And while many marques have seen short-term resurrections courtesy of…
The 1981 Yamaha TZ250 more than just an evolution of their 250 GP machine, it was a complete reworking that shared almost no parts with the older bike. It included an entirely new engine designed around features from the proven TZ500 that were intended to increase both power and reliability. Keep in mind: the TZ250…
This Laverda SFC is bit of a throwback to another era, when you really could buy a motorcycle, ride it to the track, rip off the lights, and actually compete at the professional level. Sure, there are classes today that require bikes to be largely stock, but this Laverda is really more like the equivalent…
If your biking interests occasionally run to the historical, take a look at some recent entries over at our sister site: Classic Sport Bikes for Sale. This week featured a Benelli Tornado, the Italian alternative to big-bore British parallel-twins, a jewel-like Moto Morini 350, and a rare Dunstall Norton Commando With a 642cc parallel twin…
Most attempts to resurrect a defunct or struggling brand start with high-performance, limited-edition hypersports machines that inevitably get compared to the GSX-R1000, and generally not in a good way. So it was interesting when a revitalized MZ chose not to compete directly with hypersports bikes from Ducati and Aprilia, instead creating a classy gentleman’s express…
Many of the machines featured on this site are pristine, beautiful examples, the best available anywhere. This is not one of those bikes. But it is rare, and it is a sportbike. And it’s worth looking at because it’s pretty hard to find Laverdas like this in any condition here in the USA. If you…