The Suzuki Burgman nameplate appeared fairly late in the game in 1999. It was an executive’s maxi-scoot through and through, available carbureted in 250cc and 400cc.

It wasn’t until the following generation that the Burgman cemented itself as a worthy rival to Honda’s Silverwing, the legendary Goldwing’s stout sibling.

It has had its successes in the Japanese, European, and North American markets where luxury and heft are favored over cheapness and fuel efficiency.

The Burgman Street? It’s the other way around.

Suzuki rags on about how it’s the Executive Class Maxi-Scooter, but the pandering to the nameplate’s origins stops exactly at the marketing blurb. It’s a street scooter styled to look like a maxi-scoot, and identifying it purely as the latter feels like a child trying to fit into his father’s suit.

You do see the influences of its forebears, with classy lines and curves adorning the front fascia and extending the width of the rear. The questionably small wheels make a lot more sense when you realize that they’ve basically scaled down the OG Burgman to make the Street.

It’s a shame really that it’s trying to be something it isn’t, considering that it’s a great scooter if you take the Burgman Street EX for what it actually is.

Performance-wise, it’s perfect for the city at 8.6hp. The engine’s constant drone under the CVT’s influence is about as exciting as a pack of bland crackers, but the convenience it brings is rather understated.

It’s not a rev-happy combination, but the 10Nm of torque being delivered at a fairly low 5,000rpm gives you a lot of kick-starting off. It’ll happily cruise up to 60km/h, but struggles past that.

Albeit a little anachronistic, the Burgman Street EX still comes with a kick-starter. That, once again, makes a bit more sense once you consider the market it was made for.

You do have some creature comforts, as is expected of a commuter-spec scoot. The seat is fairly low, with fold-out pegs for the pillion. The floorboard allows you to position your feet two ways, in case you get tired.

The left glove box opens up to reveal a USB port for charging, an essential in today’s tech-laden world. The Burgman Street does lack keyless ignition, something seen in some maxi-scoots nowadays. Honestly, it’s not that big of a deal; the trusty twist of a physical key is such a minuscule task to breach anyway.

Turning the key counterclockwise pops open the seat, which reveals a cavernous underseat compartment. I’m sure it fits a helmet, just not my full-face lid. You also get two hooks in the space between your legs, with one locking and folding out of the way.

The combi brake levers help with brake proportioning if you don’t want to give it much thought (even though you really should). That said, the brakes are easy to modulate, and the EX comes with ABS to help you come to a timely stop in untimely situations.

Riding it around the city, you get a sense of what the Burgman Street EX really is made for. Sometimes you just need a comfortable no-frills runabout that takes you from point A to B, and the scoot does exactly that.

It tracks straight with little effort while being nimble in maneuvering around tight spots. You can feel it has a rather low center of gravity, which isn’t at all surprising for a scooter.

It absorbs most road imperfections. Most. On some undulations, it can be a little on the bouncy side, while bumps that are not particularly massive end up bottoming out the suspension. The smaller wheels make it especially puckering to clear protruding hazards, but surprisingly the ground clearance hasn’t really been an issue in the city. Elsewhere, it rides about as well as you’d expect a lounge chair to. If it had wheels, of course.

It has LED headlights and taillights, which are decent in the dark. The turn signals are still halogens, however, but at least it’s easier to know when they’ve burnt out.

Where the Burgman Street EX absolutely shines is in fuel economy. Without even trying to be frugal, I managed to eke out a solid 39.5km/L from the scooter’s SEP-α engine. With a 5.5L fuel tank onboard, that gives me a range of about 217km. The addition of a stop-start system with the EX gives you some peace and quiet at long waits in traffic, and helps squeeze a few more kilometers from the petroleum drippings as well.

Suzuki Philippines knows this forte very well, as seen in the recently concluded Luzon leg of the Burgman econo run. The top-performing participant managed to do a rather impressive 94.6km/L from a bog-standard Burgman, while the best-performing Burgman EX rider pushed his bike to 76.52km/L. Curiously, the EX didn’t come out on top despite its stop-start system, but the technique to reach that incredible fuel economy is probably outside of the typical operating conditions that would benefit from such a system in the first place.

Perhaps I have been looking at the Suzuki Burgman Street wrongly. It’s a disservice to measure it by the executive-class maxi-scoot description its marketing team loves to push, given that it absolutely shines as a city runabout scooter by itself. At P92,400 for the 125 EX, it’s a rather interesting proposition for those looking more toward comfort rather than raw redline performance.