Are two-strokes dead? No, they’re just pining for the fjords of Norway. Actually, although the two-stroke engine design has disappeared from street-legal and motocross usage over the past couple of decades, there are still many enduro riders who love their two-smokers, especially in Europe. And now, Motori Minnarelli is working on a plan that might not Make Two-Strokes Great Again, but it might Make Yamaha’s Two-Stroke A Lot Better.

Motori Minnarelli had a new 300 two-stroke engine on display at last month’s EICMA show—well it wasn’t exactly new. It’s an evolution of Yamaha’s YZ250 engine, and Motori Minnarelli has been working on this project for a while. The same engine appeared at the 2021 show, with electric start and EFI, same as the engine spotted at the 2022 show.

The engine is reportedly Euro5 approved, and will power a new Fantic XE300 2T enduro, to be released in July of 2023. Here’s a previous teaser below:

This project has a bit of a convoluted history. Internet scuttlebutt says Jan Witteveen, a Dutch engineer who worked with Aprilia, Gilera and other race teams, started this project. Witteveen is considered a wizard of two-stroke design, which is why Moto Minnarelli brought him on board a couple of years ago. This 300 2T is a long way from the big-bore engines that Witteveen would have tuned for Rossi, Biaggi and other GP racers, but it is certainly an interesting way to put his expertise to work. More recently, Motori Minnarelli says the University of Modena also helped with the new two-stroke’s design.

Why pick the Yamaha engine? For a while, Motori Minnarelli was owned by Yamaha, and now it’s owned by Yamaha Motor Europe’s partner Fantic. The ownership of these Italian companies gets a bit convoluted, but they’re all working together to build better performing bikes and engines.

Fantic definitely wants a more modern 300 two-stroke that would allow it to compete better with other Euro dirt bike manufacturers, and at the time it acquired Motori Minnarelli, it said part of the plan was to develop engines through that company. Looks like we’ll see the end result next July!