Solid Single: 1968 Sears Lightweight SR125
This little motorcycle looks as solid as Sears.. used to be.. It’s a 1968 Sears Lightweight SR125 and it’s on Craigslist with an asking price of $1,800. It’s in Charlotte, Michigan, just southwest of Lansing. Thanks to Clarke B for sending in this tip!
The Sears Lightweight SR125 is actually a rebadged Puch M125 made by Steyr-Daimler Puch of Austria. Yeah, those guys who make the uber-cool off-road vehicles. They were made between 1966 and 1971 and Sears actually sold a lot of motorcycles through its catalogs and in its stores. Although, with this model, Puch only made a little over 1,000 of them in 1968 and around 11,000 of them in total between those years. There was an M125S version, for “sport” that was identical mechanically but had a battery for lighting and a sportier look.
This bike has 3,845 miles on it and it “runs strong”, according to the current owner who got it from an estate sale. Dang, I wonder what they paid for it?! $500 maybe? The gas tank is perfect inside which is unusual for a bike that has been sitting for as long as this one must have been. There are no turn signals here, what’a you kiddin’ me?!
I love the look of this engine, that cylinder head is a work of art. This Puch M125, I mean, Sears Lightweight SR125, is powered by a 123.5 CC single with around 10 hp. With a 200-pound curb weight those 10 horses won’t feel like a lot, but when you’re at the 64 mph top speed I bet it feels like you’re flying. You could theoretically take this cross-country but you had better stick to side roads and plan on several days. Have any of you owned a rebadged Sears motorcycle?
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Comments
Born to be wild !Maybe not but nice little bike.
Born to be mild!
Right on Jeffro.
I bought one from Sears on sale for $198 in 1969.
Cool little scoot…Reminds me of my ’66 Honda Dream. What a fun little bike that was ! Sold it to an overweight Deputy Sheriff who had no business with a bike that small and… reneged on the payment. RePo time and sold it again for twice as much as I never received the first time…LOL :)
Had a friend’s dad that had a wight Honda dream he would give us rides on it great times
Mine was red with the black long saddle. I had the accessory handlebar bracket windscreen.
The neighbor’s called it the baby harley.
When the 70’s fuel crisis hit, I got from point A to point B on the cheap, weather permitting :)
Nice. Never had a Sears motorcycle but did have this exact Sears mini bike as a kid. It was the fastest out of all my friends that had one. I think it was a 5hp.
Closest I ever came to the mini-bikes was a ’68 Benelli.
I did have a ’69 Rabbit Scooter also.
The Benelli
Hi Michael, that is a neat scoot, but I had a friend that had a Rupp Roadster, with 5hp Tecumseh, and a 2 speed, and that thing dusted my Honda 50, up to about 35, anyway, when the Honda slowly began to overtake him. I remember, he had to oil the secondary clutch, because it would pull wheelies when 2nd gear came in.
https://www.hemmings.com/magazine/hmn/2009/04/1969-Rupp-Roadster/1795771.html
Hi Howard,
Wow! That Rupp is beautiful. One of my friends had a Rupp. It was pretty fast but could not beat mine. His pull start chord would break all the time. In order to start it without the chord, he would gently hammer 2 pennies in between the clutch and housing to keep it from spinning, push the bike with the rear wheel dragging, jump on it hard, the pennies would fall out and the bike would start. No idea who came up with that but it worked.
I had the same one. Yup, it was a 5hp. Very powerful. Only drawback was that the pointed-in angle of the ape hangers wasn’t great for handling.
Ape hangers and a sissy bar cool.
It was fun. Very easy to pull the front wheel off the ground. Just ask my Mom. First time she got on it, she wheelied through my neighbors hedges. This was also the last time she rode it.
You’ll shoot yer eye out kid ! :)
Learned to ride on them.Teenagers in Mississippi in the early 60s graduated from the Puch Allstate mo-ped they got at about 13 to either this or a Vespa Allstate 125 around 15. No one ever asked about things like a driver’s licence. I rear-ended Durwood Kirby (who?) with my moped when I was 13.
Ha, shoot your eye out..
Those are fantastic minibikes!
The first time I saddled a mini-bike, my Mother told my Dad : He’s gonna break his neck on that thing ! She had the gauze bandages and the iodine at the ready. Those were great times !
And that iodine stung like H#ll !
Thumbs up.
When “Allstate/Puch” was mentioned, I had an entirely different vision of what was to appear. As kids, neighbor friend across the alley had an Allstate/Puch moped, 50cc’s, I think. Had an odd shifter, you rotated the left hand grip to change gears.(H,L) My brother and I snuck out of the house one night, and we got busted riding that thing. It sure couldn’t out run a 1970 Milwaukee Police AMC .
This is pretty cool, except it’s 625cc’s under my minimum limit for street bikes, 375cc’s for dirt. Regardless of the brand or style, it’s bikes like these that cemented a life long love of motorcycles for most. There’s no reason why this couldn’t do the same for some young person. Great find.
I’m seeing vintage ice racing.
Yes, I owned one during the 1970’s and let me tell you that engine was fantastic. Although I used it for trail riding I was able to keep up with the 250cc.
I miss this bike and am very happy to see the photo’s of it again.
I still have the 125 from my youth. To correct the speed it can get up to. 72 mph back when my weight was 98 lbs.
Bob