HD XR250

[dt]

I stumbled upon this gem in a new blog I was surfing called BubbleVisor; cool blog. 



I’m a huge fan of the H-D XR line, but I’ve never seen or heard of an XR250 (other than the one made by Honda), and after an hour or so searching the web, couldn’t find one bit of info or another picture. Must be a concept from years past, but there's nothing solid to gauge when. Although outside of the dirttracker/steettracker theme of the XRs, it's a cool bike. Thought I’d give it its own place.

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[maureen]

Well, that sure is interesting! Nice find!

[dt]

Nothing. I still can't find one thing on this anywhere. 

[mrbones]

Well, it's an AMF so you know it's between '69-'81. My guess would be the last part of that.

[dt]

That was the trick Bones. A few searches with "AMF" and I was on it...thanks! Here you go...


It looks like it’s an Aermacchi Prototype and was never produced. The above photo and ones below were taken by Eddie Boomhower at the Milan World Trade Show in 1975.





http://www.aermacchi-world.de/xr-250.html (the most uninformative spec sheet you'll ever see)

Tracked Eddie Boomhower to a website called Eddie Boomhower’s Race Reunion:

According to the website, Eddie Boomhower has been a friend of flat trackers before most of us were born. Not only was he one of the most successful Harley Davidson dealers in the USA, Eddie was also a race team sponsor and a race promoter.

Tracked the original photo in the first post to Eddie’s Picasa web-album, which has some other cool photos. Here's that link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/geoireland/EddieBoomhowerPics?authkey=Gv1sRgCObry_2NqK-t9gE&feat=directlink#

Pheew! 

[mrbones]

Wow. They were ahead of their time. It looks like an early 80's Japanese sport bike. Italians always have an eye for exotic flair.

[dt]

And to think, it’s probably now sitting collecting dust in someone’s shed in Bologna. 

With the new engine view, I've been trying to see if I can figure out what they put in there. HD had the SS250 and SX250 (Aermacchi) Enduros that year, but it doesn’t look like either. What it looks like is the engine they ultimately put the MX250 motocrosser (an Aermacchi model) that didn’t come out until 1977, but probably in the works then. It was a prototype, so maybe it was a whole different deal; probably was.