Is Yamaha about to announce a retro XSR125?

YAMAHA Thailand has announced their latest bike to join the small capacity ranks in the form of the retro-styled Yamaha XSR155.

The bike is styled to fit neatly into the existing range of XSR models, with the fuel tank, seat unit and headlight all mimicking the bigger XSR700 and XSR900 perfectly. The move would also lend weight to the report we published last week regarding Yamaha’s potential foray into the 125cc touring/adventure market with its Tracer 125.

With the XSR155 being so close physically to size and capacity of a 125cc learner legal variant for the British shores, not making the move seems massively unlikely, especially given that the custom, scrambler and café racer scene over here is going through somewhat of a resurgence in recent years.

From the spec sheet and pictures, we can see that the bulk of the bike is borrowed from the MT15/MT125, with the only major changes being the seat unit restyle, fuel tank, wide high-set bars, Van Van-a-like rear tyre, and that mahoosive silencer. Overall, we think it looks pretty sweet and watching the video, it only becomes obvious the bike is a smaller version of the XSR range when seen from the side and the small single-cylinder thumper appears.

Under the skin, the new XSR155 gets Variable Valve Actuation (VVA), water cooling and four valves per cylinder. If the 125cc model does land at some point we’d expect it to follow this format, albeit in a smaller 125cc guise and putting out the maximum 15bhp allowed to be learner legal.

The price listed for this funky machine on the Thai site is 91,500 Baht, roughly translated to £2,400. Needless to say it won't be that cheap through a UK dealer with tax and OTR charges added – we’d expect it to be in and around the £4,000 – bang in CB125R and Suzuki GSX-S125 territory.