CLASSIC MOTOCROSS IRON: 2010 BMW G450X DISASTER

In 2007 BMW was the largest motorcycle manufacturer in Europe, but the were under pressure from KTM, which was building it’s portfolio with a wide range of motocross, cross-country, enduro, dual-sport and street machines. Using simple logic, BMW decided to enter the dirt bike market to not only increase their appeal, lower the age of their demographic and find new markets, but to show KTM that could play in the off-road market too.

The bike they were banking on was the BMW G450. It was designed with the help of Joel Smets and was backed up by a number of factory riders who they entered in the yearly Erzbergrodeo — eventually leading to BMW hiring the two best off-road riders in the world to race the G450 — David Knight and Juha Salminen. BMW was going all-out in their battle against KTM and at first glance the G450X looked promising. But, in a strange twist of priorities, BMW purchased off-road manufacturer Husqvarna, muddying the actual role that the BMW G450 would play—given that Husqvarna had a wide range of off-road, dual-sport, cross-country and motocross bikes in their catalog, the actual reason for the G450 became more of a vanity project than a sales effort.

The hanger frame featured BMW’s coaxial Traction system, which meant that the swingarm pivot and countershaft sprocket were in line with each other. The clutch was mounted on the end of the crankshaft. Note that shock linkage is mounted on top of the swingarm instead of under it.

To most hardcore off-road riders, the BMW G450 seemed to be a science project gone astray. Eschewing common motorcycle design protocols, the BMW engineers ignored everything about off-road motorcycle design to build an offbeat machine that would prove to be a marketing disaster.

The list of radical ideas and concept included a closed loop fuel-injection system, countershaft sprocket that is mounted on the swingarm pivot, a clutch that spun on the crankshaft, a gas tank located under the seat (with the gas cap is positioned under a hole in the seat), a Taiwanese-built engine from Kymco, a hanger frame that the engine hung from and a crank spun backwards (a la the Czech ESO). The bike was a disaster.

The watch is in this photo to show how small the BMW clutch was.

Making matters worse for the G450 was that their high paid enduro ace David Knight quit mid-season saying that, “The guy who designed the bike wouldn’t admit that it was no good.”

This is the 2011 Husqvarna TC449 motocross version, with it’s Taiwanese Kymco engine, it was scheduled to be sold in America, but Husky North American stopped it from being imported in any numbers.

BMW got out of the dirt bike market at the end of 2010, but since they owned Husqvarna, they made Husky use the Taiwanese Kymco engine in the Husqvarna TX449 from 2011 to 2014. BMW even had Husqvarna make a motocross version of the Coaxial Traction System machine called the TC449. Only a handful of the motocross models were brought to the USA before Husky canned the idea when the fast-spinning clutch, excessive suspension squat, heavy overall weight and weird design convinced them to stick with enduro bikes. KTM bought Husqvarna from BMW in 2013 for pennies on the dollar, but didn’t want any of BMW’s intellectual motocross properties.