Scooter Review

Hawk Kymco Bug 250

It can leap city streets and expanses of freeway at the twist of the throttle. Is it a plane? No, it’s a flying BUG

Words by GREGOR STRONACH, photography CARLOS ALZAMORA

A lot of people may be turned off buying a scooter because they think that they don’t quite cut it when it comes time to covering large distances at speed. Well, think again.

The maxi class of scooter is one that really needs to be experienced to see just how good these machines are and can be. The Hawk 250 doesn’t fail to deliver performance and practicality at a great price and, in the scheme of things, this maxi is at the sporting end of the range with the likes of the Yamaha T-Max, Gilera Nexus 500 and Piaggio X9.

The Hawk retails just shy of the $8000 mark and for that you get the biz. The fourstroke, CVT automatic, liquid cooled, 251cc engine has got loads of bang for your buck. Under the seat the storage area easily doubles as an aircraft hanger and a small rear rack doubles as a pillion grab rail.

The suspension is more than competent enough to deal with the rigours of your poorly maintained back streets and the brakes deal with 162kg of flying Bug brilliantly.

The Hawk comes with a digital dash-board that will keep you informed of just about everything apart from a five-day weather forecast. Access to the fuel and oil tanks is extremely simple and the overall quality of finish of the scoot is excellent. And, if in the end it all comes down to price, the Bug just scrapes in at the happy end of the field, around $1000 less than its nearest rival, making it one of the best value scooters around.

Just the thing, if we can paraphrase Fitzgerald, for a sunny day, the open road, a picnic blanket, a loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou…

As published in TW SCOOTER MAGAZINE - 28/10/2003
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