Dear Yamaha, Please Give Us The XSR250!

Japanese motorcycle magazine, Young Machine, has made a couple of beautiful renderings of the Yamaha XSR250 using the MT-25 as the base. Currently, Yamaha only has 900cc and 700cc bikes under the XSR family. Among the small-capacity bikes under Yamaha’s Sport Heritage range, the only other retro model is the SR400. Since the XSR900 and the XSR700 are based on their naked MT iterations, we couldn't help but think about the feasibility of Yamaha making a retro avatar of the already-existing MT-25!

The retro modern motorcycle segment works really well across diverse displacement ranges as manufacturers have the liberty to design the bikes just like they want to. They don’t need to be bogged down by safety concerns, which is primarily the limiting factor in cars. Currently, India is witnessing a huge boom of retro bikes, and we believe an XSR250 with a modern powertrain and underpinnings from the MT-25 would be perfect motorcycle to go up against the likes of Royal Enfield Bullet 350, the new Jawa and Jawa Forty Two.

The MT-25 employs a 250cc parallel-twin liquid-cooled motor which generates 36PS at 12,000rpm and 22.6Nm at 10,000rpm. These figures are pretty healthy for its class, and Yamaha could simply plonk the motor into the baby XSR without making too many changes. The naked bike also comes with 41mm telescopic forks, monoshock and disc brakes on both ends. The only thing Yamaha will have to do is borrow the MT-25’s underpinnings and add ABS in the retro bike to comply with our safety norms.