In the mid 1980s, 250 single cylinder road bikes weren’t exactly hot property. So why would Yamaha decide to build one? Of course, it was quite a different story in the off-road world, and the four strokes from all the Japanese manufacturers had even unseated two strokes as the universal choice. Coupled with long travel suspension, they were a very competitive package. But a road bike? That’s a different thing altogether.
Yamaha had plenty of experience with four stroke singles, with the TT and XT 500 and to a lesser extent with the retro-styled SR 500 which all shared at least one thing – the lack of an electric starter. This pigeon-holed the 500s as ‘enthusiasts’ bikes, for those who knew how to kick start a big single, or were prepared to learn.
In the case of the SRX250, which Australia received in early 1985 - a year after its northern hemisphere launch – there was a ready-made donor engine in the XT250T trail bike. It wasn’t too great a challenge for the Japanese engineers at Iwata to
