5 Of The Most Underrated Harley-Davidsons Ever Made – SlashGear

The SX-250 was an off-roading offering from Harley-Davidson. It was produced between 1975 and 1978 and was built by Aermacchi for Harley-Davidson. Harleys aren’t known as lightweight off-road dirt bikes, and yet for this snapshot in time, Harley-Davidson dipped its toes into that segment of the motorbike marketplace.

The SX-250 came as a successor to the 125cc and 175cc models and was piloted to a Baja 500 win in the motorcycle class by Larry Roeseler and Bruce Ogilvie in 1975. But, for all the excitement brought on by the engine (an air-cooled two-stroke that produced 20 horsepower), the bike fell short of its target. Motorcycle World conducted a road test of the bike in 1975, and its review wasn’t all that flattering: “Somewhere between the drawing board and the retail outlets, something went wrong.” John Burns of Motorcycle.com identified a different problem with the SX-250. Buyers weren’t accustomed to Harleys when seeking this type of bike, and therefore “dealers mostly didn’t know what to make of the SX when they weren’t outright hostile toward it.”

At any rate, the SX-250 was heavily produced during the few years it was built, with a little over 14,000 bikes rolling off the line. As a result, combined with its somewhat lackluster performance as a true off-roader (potentially saving the bikes from the pounding that their compatriots surely would have been put through), finding one on the resale market may not be a tall order.