The Wallaby hybrid

[julianharty]

Back in July 1984, in ATG issue 98, there was an article on a hybrid Moto Morini 350 "Wallaby".

It started as a Strada and had various Yamaha and Camel parts fitted.

• Strada frame and engine
• pair of marzocchi forks for YZ125 (35mm stanchions)
• DT250MX front wheel, fits straight in the above forks
• XT500 rear wheel, fits with a little fiddling
• genuine Camel tank (fibreglass)
• two Maestro side panels
• two Stillmotor plastic guards
• pair of Renthal bars

The creator and then owner made serrated footrests and shortened the standard brake pedal by 3". If any of you know what happened to this bike (which would now be 40 years older) please let me know, I was asked about it a few months ago and it'd be great to learn more.

PS: There's a similar hybrid Strada + Kanguro front end, etc. owned by one of the club that graces the June page of this year's MRC calendar. It performed very well during the Spanish TET trip in September 2023. Hybrids can be fun

[Steve Brown]

Thanks Julian, I'd like to see pictures of that too. I think the Wallaby title is perfect too and should be applied to a 250cc trail bike. An alternative view is that Wallaby having been used on this 350 special is not to be applied to any 250 special we may create-but the hell with that I'm now committed to doing it anyway and will risk any copyright or trademark infringement threats too. The nay-sayers have suggested the title of 'Wabbit' for any 250 trail special but I will ignore them.

[3potjohn]

There’s a Wallaby near here….seems quite happy too.

[julianharty]

Thanks Julian, I'd like to see pictures of that too. I think the Wallaby title is perfect too and should be applied to a 250cc trail bike. An alternative view is that Wallaby having been used on this 350 special is not to be applied to any 250 special we may create-but the hell with that I'm now committed to doing it anyway and will risk any copyright or trademark infringement threats too. The nay-sayers have suggested the title of 'Wabbit' for any 250 trail special but I will ignore them.

Technically it's closer to a 240cc trail bike, but I'll let that go. That is unless you're planning to sneak in oversize pistons in your edition of the mob of wallabies. BTW a young wallaby is called a joey so we could also trademark that for the 240c model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallaby