I’ve featured a handful of bikes for sale at the Garage Company before, but this offering is the coolest little runner I’ve ever seen the LA based shop carry. Two stroke-machines possess an array of distinctive qualities: their sound, smell, performance and abrupt power delivery which requires damn good throttle control. Before the ’02 MotoGP switch, two-stroke machines were the pinnacle of sport performance. The NSR250R was produced by Honda for over a decade and and saw decent success in competition. While this naked NSR wasn’t a factory offering from Honda, this is nonetheless an incredibly nifty machine that would make for a genuinely fun little commuter.
This Honda is powered by a two-stroke 249cc liquid-cooled 90° V-twin with crankcase reed valve induction via twin naturally aspirated carbs. Married to the quarter-liter two-stroke engine is a six-speed constant mesh cassette type gearbox with a multi-plate wet clutch. The suspension on these bikes are made up of twin telescopic forks with oil-filled damper with spring preload adjustment. The rear rising rate shock offers variable spring preload adjustment as well, meaning the suspenders can be loosened up to better suit street riding.
The appearance of this machine is pretty unique as well. Starting with a tracker-style tail section, this example had front and rear fenders thrown onto it with the front fender appearing to have been reworked or flipped around. The headlight and windscreen combo are wonderfully dated looking and an a matching electric blue paint job makes it even less factory looking. The exposed engine and frame of the NSR250 looks cool and muscular, especially for a 250, and the exhaust and routing are unequivocally that of a two-stroke.
The ad gives very little info on the example as far as year, mileage, history etc, and while the Garage Company’s prices are some times a little steep, they have a solid reputation for selling bikes that are in solid mechanical condition, at times having been rebuilt or restored on site by their man Yoshi. The custom painted fender and iron-cross taillight seem like a somewhat unusual choices but nonetheless the taillight keeps this bike street legal. The dual exhausts and the tank – which I’m almost certain is not from an NSR250R – do look pretty cool and this is after all an objectively unique bike built from a pretty rare machine.
You can find this naked factory NSR250R for sale here on Craigslist in Los Angeles, California at the Garage Company with a price of $4,500.