Honda's Revolutionary 2 Stroke the AR Motors

by Rob Pafford
(Canada)

I have been racing offroad motorcycles for 30 years. Last winter I rented a Honda CRM250 in Thailand. This "old" moptorcycle was in pristine condition. I fell in love with its quiet torquey 2 stroke motor. It had a 6 speed tranny and emitted no visible smoke, you could run your finger through the exhaust and it came up clean, it was great on gas, lightweight, powerful and responsive. It utilized oil injection and was very simple. It looked like a 1996 CR250.

I can't stop thinking about it. I would put this bike up against anything available today in an offroad race. The owner of the rental shop said that these bikes are the most durable, reliable and low cost for him to rent in his entire fleet. If they were still available, he would buy only this model, it would drop his overhead, lower his maintenance costs and down time and increase his profits.

This bike would have sold by the zillions in North America, but it was never imported here, the closest we got was the factory one-off EXP model that Honda raced in Baja once.

This bike was totally street legal and weighed 250 lbs!!!