It’s been a while since we’ve seen a Yamaha TZR250 3MA for sale, and the bike is both very rare and also a sportbike, so we’re posting this one, even though it isn’t in perfect condition. I’m a huge fan of this particular iteration of the TZR, because of course I’m a fan of the…
Update 5.11.2018: Based on his latest eBay listing, the 1989 is still available. Our original write up from November is shown below. Good luck to buyers and seller! -dc When RSBFS last listed this 1989 Kawasaki KR-1R on our pages, we considered it to be a bit of a world exclusive. That should tell you…
It’s a shame that the second incarnation of Laverda was gone by the end of the 1990s, before the recent interest in classic styles and older nameplates. I can imagine that a modern take on their big, burly triples would have gone over pretty well if they’d survived into the present. Apparently, a new triple…
They’re relatively rare here in the US, even in states with lax registration requirements, but late 80s and early 90s quarter-liter two-strokes were pretty widely available elsewhere in the sportbiking world, considering their narrowly-focused role and limited audience. Kawasaki was largely absent from the intense class rivalry during that period, though. Their earlier KR250 was…
With everything from two-stroke racers to sidecars in their century-long repertoire, state-owned MZ ( Motorenwerke Zschopau ) went private in 1990 and was sold to Malaysian investors in 1996. These were their salad days, with lots of new smaller-displacement models and their first original four-stroke engine for the MZ1000S. This ST variant has the S…
When a mid-nineties Ducati just ain’t cutting it as far as style, panache, build sheet, rarity and dubious build quality are concerned, it’s hard to do better than a contemporary Laverda. Sure, you could go Bimota and snag Japanese reliability with the sex appeal only Italy can muster, but you couldn’t be too much more…
Dan would have to weigh in on how many bikes Gary has listed and sold on RSBFS, but suffice it to say the past year has been a great success. Saving the best for last would be a debatable and bittersweet claim, maybe there’s another container of gray-market wonders back there ? Better to relish…
During the 1980s and early 1990s, the vibrant quarter-liter two-stroke class saw the NSR, RGV, and TZR go at it with knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth intensity. Notably missing from much of the action was Kawasaki. It didn’t help that Kawasaki didn’t start building a two-stroke sportbike until 1988 and abandoned the class in 1992, before the other Japanese…
