Is Yamaha RX100 Discontinued? What Happened?

Yamaha RX100 went on sale in India in 1985. It was made by a company called Escorts Yamaha, which was a partnership between Yamaha and an Indian business. The bike had a small 98cc engine and weighed about 100 kilograms, which made it very light for a motorcycle.

The engine was called a two-stroke engine. That means it fired on every other stroke inside the engine, which gave it a quick, punchy feeling when you opened the throttle. Riders who owned one say it felt much faster than you would expect from such a small bike. It also had a four-speed gearbox and was simple enough that most owners could do basic repairs themselves.

Taking care of it was easy too. Parts were cheap and easy to find all over India. You did not need to spend a lot of money to keep one running. That made it popular with people who rode to work every day and also with people who liked to ride for fun on weekends.

By the early 1990s, India started making tougher rules about how much pollution motorcycles could produce. The RX100's two-stroke engine burned a mix of oil and fuel, which made it produce more exhaust smoke than newer four-stroke engines. Yamaha stopped making the RX100 in 1996 because the engine could not meet the new rules.

After it stopped being made, people held onto theirs. Prices for good used ones went up over time. Riders started restoring old RX100s and showing them at events. It became the kind of motorcycle that people talked about with a lot of warmth, especially people who had one as their first bike.

In 2024, Yamaha brought the RX100 name back with a brand new motorcycle. The new version has a four-stroke engine and meets modern pollution rules. It looks and works differently from the original. Fans of the original have mixed feelings about it. Some are happy to see the name come back. Others say the new version is a different bike wearing a familiar name.