This Harley-Davidson MX250 is probably the most original you’ll find, and will be offered at Mecum’s Las Vegas auction, Jan. 25-28. Photo courtesy Mecum Auctions.
Harley-Davidson isn’t particularly known for dirt bikes, but at one time the Bar and Shield folks put serious effort into developing seriously competent offroad machines. Leaning on its Italian division, Aermacchi, in 1977 Harley came up with the MX250, a full-on competition machine that took on the best and won.
Unfortunately, it didn’t win enough to satisfy the brass in Milwaukee, so after two short years of production the MX250 was dropped, with fewer than 1,000 believed built between 1977 and 1978. Mecum says this first-year bike, from a major East Coast collection, is probably the most original MX250 extant. Unraced, unabused and, Mecum says, nearly unused, it’s a time warp machine in essentially as-new condition. Mecum doesn’t say what they think the MX250 will bring, and with survivors thin on the ground it’s hard to predict — but we don’t expect it to go cheap. For reference, a supposed zero-mile MX250 failed to sell on eBay for $14,000 a few years back, while another MX250 was recently offered privately for $9,000.
