However, Honda pulled out of motorcycle racing in 1967, leaving it with a world class development team with nothing to do.

Up until this point, motocross had been dominated by four-stroke-powered machines, and had no official national championship in Japan.

As a result, Soichiro Honda gave his reluctant backing to producing not only a works competitive motocross racer, but also an out of the box version as well.

[2][3] Designed by Soichiro Miyakoshi, the prototype production machine began testing in Japan in 1971, and on California motocross tracks in 1972.

[3] The popularity of the CR250M and its derivatives soared after Gary Jones rode a stock machine to win the 1973 AMA 250 national motocross series.