Super rare Maico Cup 250 at Mallory Bonanza

Respected classic bike collector Chris Wilson had a very different and rare motorcycle at this year’s Mallory Park Bike Bonanza – a Maico WD250, a lightweight single-cylinder two-stroke racer designed solely for the 1981 Maico Cup, a one-make series designed to nurture young German racers. 

Maico was more famous for its fearsome open class motocross bikes which were competitive at Grand Prix level with riders like Ake Johnsson, Adolf Weil and Willy Bauer getting top three finishers in early 1970s World championships. Borje Jansson even scored three GP wins on small-capacity Maicos in the road racing World Championship GPs. 

But the German company also produced road bikes in limited numbers. In 1971 it launched the MD250, a road going, air-cooled, rotary valve, single-cylinder two-stroke that produced 28bhp in a super light package. In 1974 it got a styling update and Marzocchi forks, Grimeca brakes. But Japanese two-stroke twins were soon becoming the rage with autolube, water-cooling and more power, so in 1978, the 250cc single-cylinder Maico got liquid-cooling in a new model known as the MD250WK. 

The bike failed to impress against bikes like Yamaha’s two-stroke twins but as a publicity stunt to sell more machines to the home market, Maico pressed on in 1981 with a road racing version of the MD250WK, known as the WD250 – with 50 machines built in 1981 solely for the Maico Cup, a series aimed at up-and-coming German racers. In 1983, Maico filed for bankruptcy. 

The WD250 had revised port timing compared to the road model, plus an expansion chamber exhaust and full racing bodywork. It produced around 37bhp at 8600rpm. Chris said: “The six-speed WD250 is a delightful little bike. It’s no bigger than a 125 and weighs very little so, while it’s not superfast, it’s a blast to ride.”

Words courtesy Mallory Park. Images by superbike.co.uk