The advertising worked on me.
A sponsored post on social media caught my eye – is that a 450cc flat track bike with a carbon fiber frame? And there’s one with a headlight?! Now you really have my attention. With the ad agency executives pouring a celebratory cocktail – like Don Draper in Mad Men – I clicked onward. What I discovered was that not only is it a 450cc flat track bike built on a full carbon fiber frame, but there’s also one with a headlight and what appears to be a license plate bracket, too.
According to the social media post, Picasso OMT 450 makes 55-horsepower courtesy of a Honda CRF450R engine and weighs just 220-lbs. But who is responsible for this?
Photo by: RideApart.com
Stefano Picasso founded Picasso Automotive in 2020, the culmination of a lifelong love for cars and racing. He then gathered a young, driven team and set out to build a supercar from scratch in San Vittore, a small town in Switzerland. The 660 LMS was born, a car that weighed less than 2500-lbs, was powered by a 660-horsepower twin-turbo V6, and featured more than 1,100 carbon fiber components, all of which were designed and made in-house.
Now Picasso has taken that same level of crazy and applied it to a flat track motorcycle – the company’s first two-wheel project that we wrote about back in February – which was conceived to compete on the international stage in the FIM Flat Track World Championship.
According to the Picasso Engineering website, the OMT 450 and “street-legal” OMT450s STRADALE are “leveraging the full potential of composite materials and introducing a bold new structural philosophy that puts adaptability, precision, and performance at the core.”
Photo by: RideApart.com
Both the OMT450 and OMT450s STRADALE feature a modular frame system the company is calling DAST, or Dynamic Adaptive Stiffness Technology, which combines carbon fiber and 7075-T6 alloy junctions, allowing for rapid chassis adjustments between races. This allows riders and their teams to fine-tune the chassis for the specific racetracks and as track grip conditions evolve.
The carbon fiber fairings wrapped around the OMT450 offer “a fusion of lightness, strength, and extreme performance.” They were crafted with the same technology used in the production of the Picasso Automotive 660 LMS, and provide a balance between structural rigidity and minimal weight.
Powering the OMT450 is a 450cc single-cylinder, 4-stroke motor pulled from the Honda CRF450R. It’s EURO 5+ compliant, has three selectable engine maps, traction control, and what looks to be an 19-in wheel setup.
The Picasso OMT450 is available to pre-order through RedMoto, an Italian brand that specializes in building race machines based on Honda motorcycles. There’s no price listed, but I am going to guess the number will be big – carbon ain’t cheap! The OMT450s STRADALE is not currently available, however, so you’re going to have to wait to pick up the ultimate flat track bike for the street.
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