Mash 125 New Seventy 2020 — Specifications

When a relatively young brand decides to return to its roots, it’s rarely insignificant. Mash didn’t wait to have decades of catalog to embark on the exercise of a revisited re-edition. The New Seventy is the brand’s founding model, returning with a new skin, darker, more edgy, as if its own descendants had pushed it to reinvent itself so as not to disappear in their shadow.

The style change is immediately apparent upon first glance. The generic American look is gone, that round and harmless silhouette reminiscent of Sunday roadsters. The New Seventy now borrows from the urban garage vocabulary: heat shields on the exhaust, a headlight grille, matte finishes, slightly worn knobby tires, and fork gaiters. The truncated cone-shaped exhaust replaces the old sausage-style muffler, and the lowered handlebar engages the rider more directly with the motorcycle. It’s not a café-racer, it’s not a scrambler, it’s something in between that flirts with the style of custom builds. For a 125, this is a bold positioning.

Underneath this revamped bodywork, the mechanics remain as they are known. A 124 cc air-cooled single-cylinder engine, two valves, a single overhead camshaft, and 12 horsepower at 8750 rpm. The technology is old, deliberately simple, and is almost presented as an argument. Delphi injection and combined braking are there to bring the machine up to current standards without upsetting the DNA. With 127 kg on the scale, the New Seventy remains agile, which is truly important in the city. The 105 km/h top speed and the 14-liter tank complete a coherent picture for daily use or the first excursions of a newly obtained A1 license.

The real argument for this Mash, the one that makes even skeptics think, is the displayed price: 1999 euros new. In a market where serious 125s easily exceed 3000 euros, it’s a difficult proposition to ignore. The Seventy Five, older sibling and bestseller of the range, jealously holds the lead in sales in this segment. The New Seventy comes to challenge it on its own ground, with a more radical style that targets a young, urban audience, sensitive to aesthetics as much as to budget. The bet is risky, but consistent. It’s not the most technically refined 125, and lovers of Japanese refinement or German reliability will find fault. But to start with character without emptying your bank account, few machines respond so directly to the question.