Honda XL350 information

There ain’t no substitute for cubes’ as goes the old American saying, so a 350cc version of the successful XL 250 should do well, and it did. Introduced in 1974, the single overhead camshaft four valve model was produced for a further 11 years.

So if the length of a model run with mostly cosmetic modifications for most of it’s production life is a measure of a machines success, then this ticks all the boxes!

The XL did change radically though for 1984 and 1985, adopting competition suspension and styling, and designated the XL350R model, and was now a serious enduro machine, lighter with small plastic enduro style lighting with a competition fuel tank from the XR350.

The aluminium and magnesium engine produced a full 30bhp and made a serious machine off or on road, compared to it’s two stroke competition, which were simply unable to match the thumpers flexible torque and power, except of course in full out competition moto-cross machines, where the ‘stroker’ still reigned supreme, most of the time.

But for every day road and enduro riding this package was simply brilliant!

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