BMW’s been wasting absolutely no time getting its money’s worth out of its new 450 platform. The F 450 GS gave us the first look at BMW’s new 420cc parallel twin, and now the company has officially chopped away the adventure-bike bits and turned the same basic recipe into the F 450 R. And after looking at it for a while, I’ve arrived at a highly technical conclusion: yep, there’s still some of the old G 310 R in there.
BMW would probably prefer you looked further up the family tree. The company says the F 450 R follows the design language of the S 1000 R, and that’s certainly visible in the angular headlight, sharp bodywork, and generally angrier expression. But pull back a little and the proportions are awfully familiar. Compact tank, short tail, upright naked-bike stance, exposed mechanical bits underneath. It doesn’t look like a G 310 R copy, but you can definitely tell the two bikes share a surname.
