This Tiny Motorcycle Looks Like A Kid’s Toy, But It’s Real And Totally Road Legal

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a little motorcycle that blew my mind. This Yamaha YSR50 looks like a kid’s toy, a pocket bike, or maybe a scale model of a far larger racing motorcycle. However, it’s a real road-legal motorcycle that adults can ride and yes, you can buy one! It’s a product of a time when Japan’s motorcycle industry loved building race replicas of all sizes, let’s take a look.

I’ve long known about the Yamaha YSR50 and other tiny racing replicas for a while. However, these motorcycles are rare to find in the United States. Back in November, my wife was at a small used car dealership buying a Scion iQ. She’s decided the best way to preserve her BMW E39 would be to demote the wagon from daily driver duty to becoming a weekend project car.

She’s in love with her new Scion and admittedly, my Smart Fortwo-loving self is also appreciating the little guy, too. While she was signing paperwork and whatnot, I was toured the dealership, which was full of interesting vintage European cars.

Sitting in the corner was this little Yamaha YSR50.

I was told it was not for sale, but it didn’t matter. I had never seen one in person before and I couldn’t contain my excitement and wonder. It really is something roughly the size of a Power Wheels but is somehow a real motorcycle.

Japan Loves Its Race Replicas

In October, I wrote about how Japan’s motorcycle manufacturers spent the 1970s and 1980s experimenting with motorcycle technology. Back then, you could buy a Japanese motorcycle with a rotary engine, a motorcycle with an inline six-cylinder engine, motorcycles with turbochargers, and motorcycles with ever-increasing power and top speeds. These experiments coincided with the burst of popularity in motorcycle racing. Riders would spectate motorcycle races such as the 8 Hours of Suzuka and the Japanese Grand Prix. When those people got home, they wanted to buy replicas of the motorcycles they saw in those races. The manufacturers were happy to deliver.

This CBR in the below brochure photo? That’s a 250cc inline-four!

Many riders are familiar with the larger motorcycles of the era such as the Honda CBR1000F, Suzuki GSX-R1100, Yamaha FZR1000, and the Kawasaki ZX10. All of these motorcycles are exercises in raw power and speed while looking like the same bikes hurled around racetracks. However, as Motorcyclist magazine writes, big literbikes weren’t the volume sellers. Due to licensing restrictions, inspections, and emissions testing in Japan, most motorcyclists in the country bought smaller machines. I’m not talking about middleweights here, though, you could get race replicas in that size as well. I’m talking about motorcycles powered by little 250cc stormers and even smaller ones.

In my retrospective, I talked about the Honda CBR250F MC14, the Honda CBR250RR MC22, the Suzuki GSX-R250, the Yamaha FZR250, and the Kawasaki ZX250R. Those bikes were 250cc-class racers with engines that revved as high as 19,000 RPM and sounded like a vintage F1 car. Today, we’re looking at motorcycles that are smaller, much smaller.

Power Wheels

The wonderful thing about these motorcycles is the fact that they’re not just minibikes with cool fairings and headlights. The manufacturers of these motorcycles took technology from their larger sportbikes and scaled them down. Going with a road legal 50cc-class machine, which had an actual engine displacement just under 50cc, came with even more benefits than riding a 250cc. In many jurisdictions, it meant getting cheap moped-class insurance and registration.

In places like Europe, even teenagers could legally ride a micro sportbike. European brands such as Aprilia, Puch, Garelli, Derbi, and Gilera have all created their own 50cc street-legal machines. Even more petite sportbikes are supplied by practically endless Chinese companies as well.

For this piece, we’re focusing on Japan’s efforts in the 1980s, which produced some seriously rad and adorable machines.

In 1986, Suzuki debuted the RB50 GAG, pictured above. This motorcycle looked like a full-size GSX-R that had shrunken in the wash. Again, these used real motorcycle technology but on a small scale. The RB50 GAG had a telescopic fork, a welded aluminum box frame, an aluminum swingarm, a front disc brake, and a rear monoshock. That’s a lot of technology for a motorcycle with a 49cc four-stroke single making just 5.2 HP. It’s not known how many RB50 GAGs were sold, but sales ended in 1987, so it was a short-lived model.

In 1987, Honda brought out the NSR50. This motorcycle was launched in response to the Suzuki and, like that bike, resembled a larger NSR500 but on a tinier scale. Once again, we get a real motorcycle frame, telescopic fork, and a rear shock, but Honda went the extra mile with this one. Both brakes are discs and the front brake disc has a two-piston caliper. Honda’s development also included a water-cooled engine and an output of 7.2 HP. Both the Suzuki and the Honda weren’t just road bikes. Motorcycle racers young and older have used them in competition. The Honda also made it into the modern day, reaching the United States for just a single year in 2004 and continued to be sold in Japan after.

These diminutive replicas weren’t just limited to on-road motorcycles, either. In 1988, Yamaha took its TDR250 dual-sport and compacted it down into the TDR50. That’s the off-road bike at the top of this section. This one had a 49cc liquid-cooled reed intake valve two-stroke single making 7.2 HP. Some of these micro machines, like the Suzuki RB50 GAG, had 10-inch wheels. The Honda and this Yamaha had 12-inchers. Amusingly, Yamaha did publish suspension specs and you get 5.5 inches of wheel travel up front and 5.1 inches in the rear. Sure, this is no BMW GS, but it weighs just 176 pounds!

The Yamaha YSR50

Yamaha also created a pocket-sized replica to compete against the Honda and the Suzuki. This is the Yamaha YSR50. Like the other two, Yamaha began production of the YSR50 in 1986 and you can sometimes find them on on a track, too. This little guy is made to look like a Yamaha RZ500 that went for a cold swim.

I got to see this example in person and honestly, I’m still captivated by the motorcycle. Look at the stuff in the background to get an idea of the scale of this motorcycle. In person, it really does look like a toy. Heck, it’s shorter than the moped it was parked next to.

Yet, again, like those other motorcycles, Yamaha put some serious development into this bike. The YSR50 bears a perimeter frame of rectangular steel, just like the big boy racers. There’s a telescopic fork up front, a monoshock in the rear, full fairings, and street-legal lighting. Yep, you even get reflectors. Braking is handled with a disc up front and a drum in the rear. It’s old tech, but we’re talking about a motorcycle that weighs just 165 pounds here.

Under the plastic is a 49.3cc two-stroke single good for 7.2 HP and 4.27 lb-ft of torque. Peak power is made at 8,500 RPM, so you have to rev the piss out of the bike to get anywhere. Something I haven’t mentioned about all of these bikes is that they even include a traditional motorcycle transmission. In this case, you get 5 gears.

Greg Harrison from American Motorcyclist magazine reviewed the YSR50 in February 1987 by taking one on the 50cc Reliability Run in Georgia. This was a race just for 50cc motorcycles of all stripes. As Harrison wrote, speed wasn’t so much determined by the size of your engine, but by the size of your gut. The YSR50 had a top speed of around 38 mph, but lighter racers got there quicker. The Honda MB5 was also a faster steed.

Harrison said the YSR50 will make you smile. Even better, the motorcycle fit everyone from children to editors who stood 6 feet, 3 inches tall, and weighed more than the motorcycle itself did. Harrison also noted that he was able to ride the thing for three hours straight, stopping only to get fuel. Look at this clipping below with the bikes and their racers, including the guy in a gorilla suit. I bet this race was a ball!

Yamaha saw the YSR50 as a sort of family motorcycle. An adult could ride the motorcycle in the morning then pass it to their kid in the afternoon. Both would have a ton of fun and since the bike was so slow, nobody would be getting hurt. It was also just $999 back then, or $2,758 today. In Japan, they were sold for ¥189,000, which is about ¥237,079 ($1,632) in today’s money.

Today, the YSR50 is said to be the most common of Japan’s teensy sportbikes of the 1980s and 1990s. They sometimes show up for sale on auction sites and usually sell for under $10,000.

I found 10 in a 500-mile radius of my apartment and that was just when I stopped counting. The cheapest is just $2,500! You can also find them in other places. There’s a YSR50 pair for sale on eBay and the seller says $14,995 will get you both of them.

Modern interpretations of these motorcycles do exist in America. Motorcycles like the Honda Grom, the Kawasaki Z125 PRO, and the CFMoto Papio are puny bikes that resemble sport bikes, but give you a burst of joy at speeds no greater than 55 mph or so. The modern wee sportbike will leave all of these vintage machines in their dust, too.

If there’s a downside to these classic machines, it’s the weight limit. These motorcycles have a GVWR rating of 320 pounds. So, if you weigh more than about 150 pounds, officially, you’ll be overloading your minute motorcycle. Still, if you want a two-wheeler that’s legally a moped but want it to be a bit more silly, one of these motorcycles could be the ticket. They look like and are built like big, fast race replicas, but are small enough for barrels of safer, slower fun.

Images: Top graphic YSR50 via Yamaha; male silhouette via Freepik. All other images by author, unless otherwise noted.