UNBOXING A 1986 YAMAHA TRI-Z 250

The story of one man’s quest for an elusive Crated 1986 Yamaha Tri-Z 250 by Scott Parmiter Photos by Karstan Davis and Will Posey

Growing up in rural Canada, I can remember the once-a-month trip going to town with my family to stock up on groceries and get the mail. Fortunately, for me, the post office was beside a Yamaha and Ski-Doo dealership called Powercraft. Every chance I got, I ran across the street to dream over the toys displayed there while my mother got the mail. Back then, I was a collector, but I just didn’t know it yet—and I had no money. 

Life drifts by. You go to school, move, life happens, then one day you are 40 and you are looking at Craigslist every day. It becomes an obsession. It’s like having poison oak; you scratch and scratch that itch to find the impossible. Subconsciously, you want those toys you saw across the street as a kid, only now you have some money and a growing determination to find them. 

Slowly, you find relics from the past—some you keep and some you let slip through your fingers. Like a seasoned wine drinker, your taste becomes refined. Maier plastic—nope; aftermarket seat cover—nope; rear axle tarnished and pitted—nope. Your idea of mint is as close to NOS (new old stock) as you can find—not bent handlebars and rivets in the plastic fender. You hear about a bike; everyone has a story if they know you are looking. You forget about it. A year later the story resurfaces, and you chase the lead again. 

Everyone in the world is a collector of something. Some seek fortune, fame, gold or love. For me, it was the Yamaha crates I saw stacked up through the chain-link fence. Twenty years ago a picture was posted on a forum called “Three-Wheeler World.” It showed a crated 1986 Yamaha Tri-Z 250 with what appeared to be an old quilt draped over it. It looked like it was in a basement. We thought it’s not real, or I bet if it still exists, it’s rusted and the tires are dry rotted. 

I vividly remember having these conversations with Mike Palmgren from a restoration company called Vintage Motor Sports (VMS), the premier three-wheeler restorer in the world. The Honda Museum of Japan chose Mike to restore almost two dozen bikes to date. Mike knows everyone who collects three-wheelers, to any significant degree, worldwide.

When I discussed the crated 1986 Yamaha Tri-Z 250 with Mike, we did not know who owned it or where it was. It was rumored to be somewhere in Europe. Years go by, and then the same old post pops up again. This time a guy named Pete Balz who lives in the UK told us the bike was in Germany. He didn’t know its condition, but he knew someone who knew someone who might know the owner. With this knowledge, the hunt was on. The only barrier was time, which every collector doesn’t have enough of. What if someone buys it before you, it gets stolen, it’s destroyed by a tornado or fire and you have to sleep, which takes up more time? 

In 2015, after making multiple phone calls to Pete, we finally tracked the bike down to Michael Eberel, the owner who lives in Germany. Pete agreed to take his Sprinter van from the UK to Germany to visit his family. As luck would have it, his cousin spoke German fluently, so when they met up with Michael, they were able to communicate and make a deal. 

I wired him the money, and Pete hauled the crated 1986 Yamaha Tri-Z 250 back to the UK. I vividly remember Pete saying that the barn was on a hill out in the middle of nowhere and that it was unbelievable to find it still crated. It was covered in dust but preserved. Michael purchased the bike August 12, 1992, from a Ferrari dealer 200 kilometers away. He said the bike was shipped from Japan to the USA where it stayed in a container for seven years, then was shipped by container to the UK, then eventually on to Germany. Olsen never sold bikes but somehow got the container by accident. 

Michael also bought a crated 1985 Yamaha Tri-Z 250 from the same dealer May 8, 1992.  Because he bought the ‘85 model first and assembled it to ride, he never got around to uncrating the ‘86 model. If he hadn’t purchased them in this order, I would have never gotten this bike. Michael owned the crated 1986 Yamaha Tri-Z 250 for years, keeping it in the crate unassembled. Who would do that? I do not know anyone who would have kept it that long and then still decide to sell it.

Pete sent the bike to me in 2016 from his home in the UK by ship, and I have had it stored for seven years in my climate-controlled shop. So, what’s the big deal? To my knowledge, this is the only crated 1986 Tri-Z 250 in the world. We found King Tut’s sarcophagus and we opened it! It was the last motocross three-wheeler ever made by Yamaha. It’s new in the crate, it’s an icon, it’s a survivor.

Honda crushed all their bikes, and we know of only one remaining crated Honda 250R in the world. Yamaha, fortunately, didn’t crush their bikes but chose to send them to Europe to be sold unassembled at used car auctions. Pete used to work for Jaguar and recalls seeing them all the time selling for 600-pound sterling in Britain. 

So, why did we open it? It was a personal choice. I wanted to share the bike with the world. Keeping it behind closed doors in my personal collection is selfish, don’t you think? This is a piece of history that I believe should be preserved. Keeping it dirty in a crate isn’t preserving it. To me, that’s more like hoarding. It took Mike, his son Sean and me a day to uncrate it, assemble it, and clean it. 

We had a professional photographer video and take pictures for two days. We washed it with Simple Green and wiped it with 303 Protectant only. We documented everything—no trickery, no gimmicks or photo editing was done.  Every piece of the original crate was kept so nothing is lost. Technically, if you take a NIB (new in box) Rolex out of the box and look at it and put it back in, it’s still NIB. So, this bike could be put back in its crate. 

This iconic 1986 Yamaha Tri-Z 250 is in NOS (new old stock) condition and would have been rolled out as is and sold in any ATV showroom nearly 40 years ago in North America. This bike isn’t for sale. True collectors do it for the passion, not the money. For feature video content, follow our YouTube channel below.

To get you project professionally restored check out Vintage Motorsports at www.vintagemotorsports.net