Best Budget Scrambler? Fantic Caballero 500 Walkaround & Specs

So I've been down to Crazy Horse London a couple of times recently, which is an awesome shop with a nice range of bikes and gear, but one in particular kept catching my eye, the Fantic Caballero 500 Scrambler. Not only is it a hell of a good looking bike in my opinion, but I actually think it might be one of the most underrated scramblers on the market at the moment. So here's why. The Caballero is just a couple of years old, having been launched at EICMA in 2017, but Fantic have been making small capacity enduro bikes for over 50 years now. It's a common criticism of many modern day scramblers that they aren't really fit for off-roading, but Fantic appear to have applied their experience to the Caballero. It's a punchy, lightweight single with spoke rims, knobblies and plastic bodywork that won't be expensive to replace if it gets dropped. So all that should make for a bike that can tackle a few trails. The Caballero 500's motor is a 449cc single with 4 valves, and it puts out 40hp and 43nm of peak torque. Some of you might be put off by the fact that the motors are Chinese made, Zhongshan supplied them before the rest of the bikes built around it in Italy. But I wouldn't dismiss them so quickly. Norton signed a 20 year deal with Zhongshan for them to build their new 650cc parallel twin and they're also known to make parts for Harley, BMW, Piaggio and more. Reviews on this motor seem to suggest that while a 450 single isn't going to set the world on fire, it's more than enough beef to push it along at a fair clip, especially considering the bike's weight. This would be the main criticism of many of today's so-called scramblers. Take Triumph's street scrambler for example, which is over 200kg dry. Although it's been ridden off-road by plenty of folks, and it's one of the bikes offered at Triumph's off-road school, it's probably not going to be your first choice. Ducati's scrambler fares a little bit better at just over 170kg dry, but the Caballero comes in at just 150kg. That's more than 50kg lighter than the Triumph, which is a massive difference, especially if you're a smaller rider. Yes, it's a lower capacity bike, but it's also pretty stripped back and lean, which contributes to weight saving. That said, stripped back doesn't necessarily mean a poor spec. The Caballero's got pretty good equipment where it's needed. The chromo frame is built in Italy and it's suspended on Fantic's own brand 41mm upside down fork, as well as a vertically mounted monoshock with rebound adjustment. The spoke wheels come with Pirelli Rally STR tyres, which should be good enough for most trails, but also offer a reasonable ride on the street, and brakes are from Bybre, which is a budget subsidiary of Brembo. I haven't ridden on Bybre's before, but I've heard good things, such as the reviews on the new Royal Enfield 650 twins, and these gold calipers paired with a 320mm wavy disc at the front and 220mm at the back definitely look the part. Elsewhere, you've got Tomaselli bars, domino grips, billet aluminium foot peg hangers and yokes, LED lights at both ends, a neat little digital display, and switchable ABS. The exhausts have even been designed in collaboration with Arrow, so here's Paul from Crazy Horse starting the bike up for us to hear it. Whether you like it or not, a bike like this will be at least partially bought for its looks, and I think it's a beautiful piece of design. The overall stance looks mean and chunky for a mid-capacity single, especially with those Pirelli knobblies. The big upside-down forks, wide bars and short bench all make for a bike that looks almost custom. The traditional Fantech colour scheme adds a bit of heritage, and there's some modern touches with the motor, the carbon heat shield and LED lighting. It's one of those bikes where you really wouldn't need to change a lot to get it looking neat. The price of all this? £6,200 for the 500, £5,400 for the 250 and £4,900 for the 125. There are quite a few scramblers available on the market for less, which are almost entirely produced in China, but the Caballero has a much more premium feel and spec, yet it undercuts many of the bigger capacity big-name scramblers by a few grand. It seems like a decent price point for a bike that you won't see that many of on the road. Thanks again to Crazy Horse London for wheeling the bike out for me to film it. Hopefully I'll have more content from their shop in future, as they've got a whole range of beautiful machines that I'm keen to cover. I've put a link to their Instagram in the description below. I'd also love to hear what you think of the bike in the comments. Do you think it looks like a genuinely capable off-roader, and can you name a better retro scrambler for the money? Let me know your thoughts, and if you're new here and you want to see more videos like this, hit subscribe and I'll see you next time.