CFMoto 450SR Photos and Details Leaked

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New specs confirm that the 450SR sportbike will be powered by a 449cc parallel-twin engine pumping out 50 hp. (CFMoto/)

China’s CFMoto surprised plenty of people with last year’s SR-C21 concept—an Italian-styled, carbon-clad sportbike that left us with more questions than answers when it came to performance potential or production future. Now the real-world version of that machine has broken cover thanks to a type-approval filing in China that reveals not only its final appearance but confirms its power and engine details.

It turns out that the mystery engine is a 449cc parallel twin, pushing out an impressive-for-its-size 50 hp and placing the bike—likely to be called the 450SR—into a market segment with few obvious rivals. It sits above machines like Yamaha’s R3, but Honda’s CBR500R is a closer match in terms of capacity (471cc) and power (47 hp), though it’s vastly heavier than the CFMoto. The Chinese machine is just 370 pounds wet, compared to 423 pounds for the Thailand-made Honda.

From the images seen so far and the limited available specifications, it looks like the 449cc twin is completely new. It has a 72mm bore, which means the stroke must be around 55mm to reach the 449cc total. Those numbers don’t match any of CFMoto’s existing engines, and the visible portions of the engine cases on the bike don’t look like those on the firm’s current 400cc twin, which itself is a downsized version of a 650cc design.

Related: CFMoto Enters US Motorcycle Market With 4 Models

There remains a possibility that the engine could be related to the long-awaited small KTM twin, often referred to as the “490″ and believed to have a capacity of between 400cc and 500cc. CFMoto is KTM’s partner on several manufacturing projects, including the LC8c parallel twin used in the 790 and 890 Duke and Adventure models, and builds both the KTM engines and complete bikes on behalf of the Austrian company. The Chinese firm has recently launched its own adventure bike, the 800MT, based around the 799cc KTM LC8c parallel twin.

That new twin is bolted to a tubular steel frame and wrapped in bodywork designed in Italy by Modena 40, CFMoto’s Rimini-based R&D unit (the “40″ graphic on the side of the bike serves as a reference). The overall style is similar to the company’s 250SR and 300SR sport models (sold in the US as the 300SS), but with a more upmarket appearance thanks to stylized LED running lights above the headlights, cutting up into the nose fairing in the same style as those on the SR-C21 concept. The production 450SR also has long winglets either side of the nose, though they’re unlikely to be made of carbon fiber as on the concept. In fact, most of the body panels are unchanged from the concept, even if the components bolted to the bike are toned down to make it affordable.

Where the SR-C21 concept had an Öhlins fork and dual Brembo radial calipers at the front, the production 450 has a single disc and fork that aren’t likely to come from Öhlins. At the back, the concept had a single-sided swingarm below dual SC-Project exhaust mufflers, but the production model has a double-sided arm and a single, low-mounted exhaust on the right-hand side.

Other changes include the addition of legal necessities like mirrors, turn signals, and a license plate bracket, as well as the adoption of cast alloy rearsets instead of the adjustable, CNC-machined versions of the concept. The bars are also repositioned, rising above the top triple clamp rather than the concept’s low-mounted clip-ons.

With CFMoto now bringing bikes to the USA as well as the side-by-sides and ATVs the firm has offered in the States for a while, there’s a good chance the 450SR could reach these shores eventually, but since it hasn’t even been officially unveiled yet, it’s too early to guess at when that might happen or what the bike will cost.

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