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RM-Z450

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In a shocking announcement, Suzuki Motor Corp. announced the withdrawal of its factory-supported teams from the Motocross World Championship (MXGP) and All Japan Motocross Championship – two high-profile series for Suzuki’s off-road racing efforts.

Suzuki says that the move comes after evaluating its motorcycle operations, as it plans to focus on its core business function, and it also restructures its motorcycle business. The result, as we have now seen, is the Japanese brand reducing its MX commitments.

It is a tremendous shame that the options for a road legal supermoto for are so limited, with the venerable Suzuki DR-Z400SM being the only offering in the 450cc on-road class.

For virtually a decade, Suzuki has left the DR-Z basically unchanged – as it has done with many of its sport models – so we would love to see Suzuki and other manufacturers give this space more attention (a hat tip to Husqvarna for bringing the track-only FS450 to market, long with the 701 Supermoto).

Although you can wake-up the DR-Z400 with a few simple modification, and there are a bevy of aftermarket kits that can punch the 398cc machine out in size, what we really want from Suzuki is a proper 450cc street supermoto – one that doesn’t stray too far from the brand’s current strong motocross offering.

So, when we saw this little bit of Photoshop work by the folks at the German Suzuki dealership of DSR-Suzuki, we got a little excited.