The World’s Cheapest New BMW Retails For Just $4,750, Has 33 HP

If you’re not a fan of motorcycles, then you probably had no idea that you can now purchase a brand new means of transportation from BMW for the shockingly low price of $4,750.

Compared to most other bike manufacturers, BMW have always been a bit more expensive – sometimes a lot more, depending on which category of motorcycle we’re discussing. A few years back though, the German brand decided to dip its toes in the sub 500cc street bike segment for the very first time.

The product is called the G 310 R and before you decide to fact-check us, we’re aware that, technically, there are other, cheaper BMW products you can use to get around, like BMW bicycles or their tiny City Scooter, which costs just €200 ($234).

Yet, writing something about either of those felt a lot less interesting than talking about a product with actual horsepower at its disposal.

Back to the G 310 R – its price tag is considerably smaller than anything else you might find at BMW Motorrad. Even their scooters cost twice as much, while most of their other bikes cost north of $10,000, way North. If you want, you can even buy a bike from them that’ll set you back $78,000, about as much as you’d spend on a 2019 M4 Convertible.

Now that we’ve established how cheap the G 310 R is compared to other BMW motorized products, we should mention that it also costs less than similar bikes from rival manufacturers, such as the Kawasaki Ninja 300 or the Yamaha YZF-R3.

As you can probably imagine, there has to be a catch, and in this case, it’s the fact that BMW Motorrad only designed and developed the bike. The company then relied on their India-based partner TVS to handle production. It was probably the only way they could justify the reasonable price tag, despite the premium badge.

Yet, like all BMW motorcycles, the G 310 R is fitted with ABS as standard. It also features a 33 HP (34 PS) 313 cc single-cylinder power unit, which puts down 28 Nm (20 lb-ft) of torque at 7,500 rpm. It’s not exactly mind-boggling quick, but since the bike weighs just 158.5 kg (349 lbs), performance should be OK, especially if you’re a beginner – and not a particularly tall one.

So there you have it. With cars, the cheapest new BMW you can get is the X1, which in the U.S. starts from $33,900. UK buyers on the other hand can go even lower by spending £22,450 ($29,574) on a 1 Series hatchback. But if you can ride a bike and you’d love something with a BMW badge for the price of an iMac Pro, the BMW G 310 R is the answer.