| 1975 H-D MX-250 |
| 1979 CAGIVA MXR-250 |
| 1976 H-D MX-360 (341 EXPERIMENTAL) |
| 1978 H-D MX-250 |
| Download file: PDF |
| 1978 HARLEY-DAVIDSON MX-250 |
WWW.SOLISVINTAGEBIKE.COM
| *THE UN-OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE 1978 MX-250* |
| *MX-250 PRODUCTION SEQUENCE* |
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| 1978 H-D MX-250 NEW UNUSED UNRESTORED |
Harley-Davidson manufacture in the first half of 1977 all of their production models of the 1978 MX-250. This was the only official production motocross model Harley-Davidson manufacture. Even thou Harley-Davidson had manufacture and tested a MX-250 prototype in 1975 and a 341 experimental race bike in 1976, the only mass and official production bike was the 1978 model. Because of the lack of understanding and confusion between all of Harley’s motocross bikes types and non official history and records by Aermacchi, Harley-Davidson and Cagiva many aficionados and writes have confuse one with the other when they are talking about production made, type and year of manufacture. As you can see, to the inexperienced person really there is not much difference between models interest by the public on what Harley-Davidson was doing nor I think were they informed. Much of the research for this web site and types. But the reality is that there are many differences between all of them. Moreover, at the time there was not really much interest by the public on what Harley-Davidson was doing nor I think were they informed. Much of the research for this web site has come from motorcycle magazine articles of the era. But even they had some wrong and contradicting information regarding the subject. In addition, some of the tests performed were done by just testing a bike from a third party owner, which indicates to me that communication was an issue and answers why we know so little from all of the prototypes. And the continued confusion with the first and last Harley-Davidson production MX model , “1978 MX-250”. The exact official production quantity of the 1978 model bike is unknown. In my unofficial research, in which I have studied the VIN# of both the engine and the frame of many different bikes for the past several years and the input of qualified MX-250 enthusiasts, I have come to the conclusion the total production quantity of the 1978 MX-250 model was around 1,000 motorcycles. Harley-Davidson Aermacchi Italian factory manufactured and produced more MX-250 engines than the actual motocross bike. One of the key indicators is that the actual MX-250 engine case block production sequence number is always a larger number than the bike’s Vehicle Identification Number “VIN”. Harley-Davidson has two different identification numbers for the engine. The first is the one that identified the engine production sequences, and the other identified the actual motorcycle production sequences. In the rear back side of the engine you would see two identical numbers. These consist mainly of a letter and three numbers “A838”. These two identical numbers are for identifying the matching engine case when they were manufactured. This also lets you know that they are a match when studying the engine. You should never have an engine with two different block case engine numbers. A complete original 1978 MX-250 will have matching VIN# between the frame and the engine. The prototypes are exception to this rule. Moreover, by the time Harley-Davidson introduced their MX-250 they were abandoning their lightweight program. Before Cagiva Group bought the Aermacchi factory from Harley-Davidson it had been closed for several months, which may also have caused the loss of manufacturing information. The Aermacchi factory disorganization, follow up and more importantly the manipulation of documents of probably many bikes and parts that Harley-Davidson will probably never know where the inventory went. And in addition, the financial situation and lack of sales in the USA with overstock inventory brought the Italian venture down. Harley-Davidson had an excellent product with their lightweight motorcycle, but the lack of vision and bad managements added poor marketing strategy and no money finally caught with them by May 1978. Sometime after the end of the summer of 1978 Cagiva started running and managing the factory. It is not clear when they really took complete control of Aermacchi from Harley-davidson, but at least officially by November of 1978 they were introducing their new motorcycles with the Cagiva name. We also, do not know what were the agreements between Cagiva and Harley-Davidson regarding their current production line and parts supply. But Harley-Davidson was required by USA laws to produce a minimum amount of parts for their lightweight model lines sold in the USA market. This could explain why there were so many parts left over in the USA and how Harley-Davidson managed to make and sell similar engines to the MX-250 racing type with stamped VIN# made in the year 1980 almost two years after they pulled out of Italy. In addition, this could have been the reason why Cagiva produced mainly identical motorcycles to the Harley-Davidson specially the street models. The European version of the 1978 model was supposed to come out at the end of 1977, but it never happened. There are rumors that many of Harley-Davidson Italian motorcycles were lost in Europe while being in transit to the U.S. In addition, because of the lack of sales Aermacchi had many bikes in storage that corroded because of improper storage since they were manufacturing more motorcycles than they were selling. |
PRODUCTION SEQUENCE: The MX-250 engine production sequence number will look like this: R7700001. The R; is to identify the engine as a racing engine. The 77; is the year the engine was manufactured, in this case it is 1977. Next you would have the actual production sequence number. The last five numbers are the official engine production number sequence; 00001. The VIN# or Bike identification numbers is what actually identified the bike and number that the title or Bill of Sell should have. The 1978 MX-250 production model VIN# would look like this: 7D10001H8. The 7D; is to identify that it is a motocross production bike. The MX; with engine size of 250cc. Again, All the 1978 Harley-Davidson production models bikes sequence number will start with a 1. The last four numbers are the official bike production number sequence; 0001. The H; means decade 1970 and the 8; is to identify the 8th year of the decade. So the year model is 1978. I still have not seen a production sequence over 1000. The closes to this has been in the high 980. |
| 1978 EUROPEAN H-D MX-250 |