Reviews for Riders: The 1980s Yamaha PW50

I never had one. Missed that window completely. But I just spent the weekend at AMA's Vintage Motorcycle days and I saw more than one of these things kicking around with a full grown adult on it.

Turns out there's a reason.

The Numbers... 49cc air-cooled two-stroke single. Automatic centrifugal clutch, one speed, no shifting, no clutch lever. Oil injection, so nobody's mixing gas in a jug. Shaft final drive, so there's no chain. Drum brakes front and rear, 10-inch wheels, roughly 2.8 lb-ft of torque, about 80 pounds dry, and a seat height right around 19 inches. It debuted at the Las Vegas dealer show in September 1980 at $439. Yamaha planned on selling 8,000. They sold 17,000, then 33,000 the year after.

What it is... A shaft-drive motorcycle for a six-year-old. That's not a gimmick, that's the entire design brief. Yamaha's engineers pulled the wheels off the Passol scooter and the shaft drive off the Carrot, which we got here as the QT50, because a chain on a kid's bike means a dad in the driveway with a chain tool he doesn't own. Takashi Matsui, one of the engineers on the project, said the hard part was never making it work: “We used the same engine as the model adults rode, so durability wasn't a problem at all. Maybe the only challenge we had was reducing the power.”

So they put a screw in the throttle to cap how far it opens and a restrictor plate in the exhaust that comes out when the kid's ready for it. Two stages of growth engineered into a bike that costs less than a decent set of tires.

What it isn't... It isn't fast, and it was never trying to be. It isn't really suspended either, the forks and that little rear shock exist to keep the wheels roughly underneath the bike, not to soak up a landing. Drum brakes are drum brakes.

It's also not a bike anybody keeps. Kids outgrow it in two or three seasons, which is why the used market is full of them and why almost nobody bothers restoring one properly.

Buying one for the kid... This is the job it was built for and it's still the best tool for it. No shifting, no clutch, nothing to stall, which means a kid learns the three things that actually matter, throttle control, brakes, and balance, without a fourth thing to panic about. The throttle screw means you decide how fast “fast” is, and you back it out a quarter turn at a time as the confidence shows up. That's a real advantage over an electric kids' bike with three preset modes and no middle ground.

Figure it fits a kid from about four or five until seven or eight, or until the knees are in the chest. Then it's a PW80, a TT-R50, a CRF50, and eventually something with gears.

If you're shopping an 80s one specifically, buy on condition and not on year. These barely changed, so a tidy '87 and a tidy '05 are the same motorcycle wearing different clothes. Confirm the exhaust restrictor plate and the throttle adjuster screw are both still there, because they're the first parts to disappear. Pull the plug and check for spark. Assume you're cleaning the carb no matter what the seller tells you. And look hard at the oil injection pump. If somebody deleted it, ask what ratio they've been premixing at, because a lean two-stroke seizes and doesn't warn you first.

A note from the shop... Parts availability on these is absurd for something this old. Carbs, rebuild kits, plastics, cables, the whole catalog, most of it cross-listed across four decades. And the most common no-start on an old one is fuel-side, not spark-side: varnished carb, gummed-up petcock, cracked fuel line. Work through that before you start throwing money at ignition parts.

Takeaways

• Effectively the same motorcycle since 1981, so buy on condition, not model year.

• Shaft drive and an automatic clutch leave almost nothing for a parent to maintain.

• The throttle screw and exhaust restrictor let the bike grow with the kid. Make sure both are still on it.

• Expect a carb clean on any barn-find example, and verify the oil pump works or that the seller has been premixing.

Looking for the PW50 community? Find every active forum HERE