Owning one now

There’s precious little reason not to home a T250/350 now if you’re keen to get into earlier Japanese strokers. Incomplete project bikes are always likely to be the proverbial millstone so avoid unless you can easily source the missing parts; a complete non-runner is arguably a much better bet. That said if you have the cash, most of what you might need is out there to varying degrees. A complete paint kit of oil and fuel tank plus side panel, painted and with badges is yours for £800 should you wish. Enterprising individuals have sourced oil pump rebuild kits, a Japanese firm have remade the pistons and rings along with con rod kits. eBay UK currently seems to be littered with NOS pistons and rings and its American cousin can supply Wiseco aftermarket kits for the 350.

On the negative side, speedo and tachos are hard to source and some model year specific switch gear is also rare now. Mudguards are often hard to source and expensive when found. Many of the seat foams were natural rubber based and become sponges if the cover is damaged, leading to rotted out seat bases.

The range ran 1969 to 1972 thereby offering four model years and given that both the 250 and 350 were volume market machines there’s a lot to choose from even now. The only caveat here would be the T250II high pipe model; if you have your heart set on one of these ensure it has those unique exhausts. 1970 – 1972 offers three model years with generally two colour options per market. There really is no significant differences between the T250s other than aesthetics and peripheral fittings such as passenger grab rails and even these may differ country to country. The TT250 is rare bird in the UK and it’s worth knowing that it’s possible to produce a ‘reproduction version’ via panels from a GT250. Such hybrids aren’t automatically easy to spot. The 350 version splits neatly into the 69/70 round tank models and the 71/72 square tank versions with, again little in the way of intrinsic difference other than appearance.

It’s the later 71/72 models that often seem to fetch top dollar yet the earlier versions do have a unique look and are arguably worth tracking down simply for their distinctive styling.

From that point on until 1972 nothing much changed until Suzuki once again played around with the styling. For that one year you could have the organic rounded look of the T250J or the more cobby profile of what was called the TT250, with its cuboid tank and boxy panels. Typical of the Hamamatsu firm, the stylists were given free rein to try new ideas and so they’d already been playing with the looks of the 350 a year earlier in 1971 when the new Rebel replaced the old Rebel. As an aside, both the later T350s and the TT250 featured cylinder heads with substantially angled fins that were totally unlike anything in the entire Suzuki range. The new look Rebel’s typing was uncannily like that of the TT250 but even more changes were afoot.

1973 saw the introduction of the GT250 which was essentially a T250 with a Ram-Air cylinder head, a disc front brake and the self-same boxy panels from the 1972 TT250 and 1971 T350, just painted differently. Sadly the bigger twin had had its day as corporate dictats saw it dropped in favour of a 380 triple that was heavier, slower and thirstier. Those that know their Suzuki two-stroke twins inside out reckon the T250/350s were the zenith of the firm’s welter weights.

THE RIDE

These Suzuki stroker twins are some of the best of the era and arguably strike the right balance between technical details, performance and ease of use. The bikes are relatively light, handle well enough and feature a motor that’s robustly engineered. For a twostroke they’re not highly strung and are more than content to pootle along on a whiff of throttle in urban situations. Open the taps and they’ll happily canter on at a decent rate then cruise without coughing or surging; give them a tad more gas, get them on pipe and they become superbly enthusiastic. That this and more is consistently available without issue or the utilisation of discs or reed valves is a phenomenal achievement from a piston ported motor and only underlines just how good the engine’s flow dynamics and carburation are.

Chassis-wise the bikes are of their time but