In the first of our new series of some of the coolest, rare or just downright amazing bikes, check out this beauty of a factory Honda, the 1991 CR250MA that was raced in the Japanese championship.

It was the year when Honda had two totally different factory 250 races bikes. The most famous is the RC250MA, which had an all-new engine with automatic gearbox and backwards-facing kickstart. Raced by Taka Miyauchi in the Japanese series, and also on one-off rides by Jean-Michel Bayle, it is the most well-known of the works Hondas ever.

But to give test riders something to compare it to, HRC also ran this CR250MA which was a full factory version of the stock machine, with a conventional five-speed gearbox. So in some ways, it’s even rarer…. Note the factory Coke bottle-shaped swingarm and aluminium tank as well as works Showa forks.