KTM has won the last 13 runnings of The Dakar, and to get that thirteenth win for 2014, the Austrians went back to the drawing board, designing and building an all-new 450cc rally racer.
With the previous KTM 450 Rally being essentially the 690cc machine, with a 450cc motor wedged into it, the 2014 KTM 450 Rally race bike was able to make great strides over its venerable, though compromised, predecessor.
The proof in the pudding was Marc Coma claiming his fourth Dakar win, and soldifying KTM’s position against an increasingly more competitive field, which sees both Honda and Yamaha elevating their game.
With the factory team signing off on the design, the Austrians are is now making the KTM 450 Rally available to privateers, with the KTM 450 Rally Production Racer now available for purchase.
KTM has a long tradition of selling top-spec race bikes to privateer entries, and with the recently announced Honda CRF450 Rally Production Racer now available to competitors as well, privateers have some good choices in the marketplace.
Before you go thinking that you’ll be buying the ultimate enduro, be aware the production runs are extremely limited (we hear you have to attach your racing resume to your purchase order), and the starting cost will be €24,000 sans the race support package from KTM, for the several dozen of these machines that will be built.
For that money though, you will be getting a bike that “features an all-new frame incorporating an ergonomic design, a slim body shape with a better seating position, completely re-worked rear suspension and a new overhead single cam 450cc fuel-injection engine.”
KTM goes on to say that the 450 Rally also “boasts a front and rear fuel-pump system with multiple tanks, which allows the rider to pick a fuel source to utilise the weight depending on the terrain, a carbon tower at the front of the bike that gives the rider better visibility of the front wheel, and thus instilling extra confidence with improved vision along with many other refinements throughout the machine’s design to create the ultimate rally race bike.”
You can get it in any color you want, as long as it’s orange. That’s probably not true.
Source: KTM
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