Meet MX-250, Harley-Davidson’s 1970s Motocross Racer
Two sets of forks, 250ccs, and a Baja 500 victory add up to one unusual footnote in Harley-Davidson history.
Lately, the styling department at Harley-Davidson has been digging into the archives, taking us back to the 1970s. While the AMF era is widely considered a dark time for the brand, it’s hard to deny that those bikes had incredible style.
It certainly wasn’t all bad, though. Harley-Davidson branched out into a lot of new directions. While Harley-Davidson’s product line today is pretty homogenous, back in the ’70s, it was a different story. Given that Harley-Davidson is about to shake things up with the Pan America and the LiveWire, now’s as good a time as any to take a look back at some of their unusual bikes from the past.
From golf carts to minibikes, AMF was happy to put the Harley-Davidson name on just about anything. While most of these products fizzled, some resulted in some truly impressive engineering developments.
We stumbled upon this article from Motocross Action Magazine profiling one of Harley-Davidson’s early motocross efforts, the 1975 MX-250. Right away, you’ll notice something unusual – it has two sets of forks!
Where the rear shocks would normally be located, you’ll instead find what appears to be a modified front fork setup. These are actually specially designed fork-style shocks manufactured by Kayaba. Reviewers at the time said that the setup actually worked quite well, and, paired with the Showa fork up front, offered good performance.
Also unusual was the bike’s brake setup, which utilized a Yamaha front hub with a drum brake and an Airheart disc at the rear. The 250cc two-stroke Aermacchi engine was fed by either a Mikuni or a Dellorto carburetor. It was said to produce decent low-end power, but required short shifting to get the most out of it.
Just 65 of these unusual bikes were produced, making them one of the rarest Harley-Davidsons of all time. While the 1975 MX-250 was not a successful motocross racer, Bruce Ogilvie rode one to victory in the grueling 1975 Baja 500 off-road race.
Harley would again attempt to build a motocross racer in 1978. They resurrected the MX-250 name and used it on a much more conventional bike. After limited success, Harley-Davidson gave up on motocross bikes for good in 1979.
Photos: Motocross Action Magazine
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