KTM: History of the Austrian Motorcycle Maker and the X-Bow

The company at a glance

KTM is best known for its orange off-road motorcycles, but it has also built mopeds, scooters, bicycles and a car. The X-Bow is the only car in its history and the reason KTM appears in the 1cars catalogue: the KTM X-Bow is listed in the KTM catalogue, alongside other lightweight driver's cars among sports cars.

Origins and founders (1934–1953)

In 1934 Hans Trunkenpolz opened a fitter's and car repair workshop in Mattighofen, a small town in Upper Austria. It became known locally as Kraftfahrzeug Trunkenpolz Mattighofen, although that name was never registered. From 1937 he sold DKW motorcycles and from 1938 Opel cars. In 1953 the businessman Ernst Kronreif became a major shareholder. The company was registered as Kronreif & Trunkenpolz Mattighofen, giving the initials KTM.

History by era

1953–1970s: R100, scooters and mopeds

Series production of the R100 motorcycle began in 1953, with 20 employees building about three motorcycles a day. The R125 Tourist followed in 1954 and the Mirabell scooter in 1955, along with mopeds such as the Mecky, Ponny I and II and Comet. In the 1960s KTM also started making bicycles. By 1971 it employed about 400 people. In 1974 KTM won its first motocross world championship, the 250 cc title, with Gennady Moiseyev, and in 1978 it founded KTM North America in Ohio.

1980s: growth and crisis

In the 1980s the company became KTM Motor-Fahrzeugbau KG and grew to about 700 employees. It stopped making scooters and mopeds in 1988 to concentrate on motorcycles. Financial problems followed, and in 1991 a consortium of creditor banks took control and split the company into four businesses: KTM Sportmotorcycle, KTM Fahrrad (bicycles), KTM Kühler (radiators) and KTM Werkzeugbau (tooling). From then on, the motorcycle business developed separately from the bicycle, radiator and tooling companies, which went their own ways under the KTM name.

1992–2007: Pierer, Dakar and Duke

In 1992 Stefan Pierer took control of the motorcycle business. In 1994 the KTM factory team made its Dakar Rally debut and the Duke street motorcycle went into production. KTM bought Husaberg and took control of WP Suspension in 1995, and from 1996 its motocross bikes wore the orange colour that became the brand's trademark. In 2007 India's Bajaj Auto bought a 14.5% stake, which rose to 47.97% by 2013. Bajaj remained KTM's main partner from then on, and the KTM workforce grew to 2,931 people by 2017, about seven times the level of the early 1970s.

2008–2020: X-Bow, Husqvarna, GasGas and MotoGP

KTM presented its first car, the X-Bow, at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show and began production that year. In 2013 it bought Husqvarna Motorcycles from BMW, and in 2019 it acquired 60% of GasGas, which became wholly owned in 2020. KTM entered MotoGP and Moto2 in 2017, and on 9 August 2020 Brad Binder won KTM's first race in the premier class.

2021 to today: restructuring and Bajaj control

In 2021 Bajaj swapped its 46.5% stake in KTM for 49% of the parent company, Pierer Mobility. Pierer Mobility took a stake in MV Agusta in 2022 and increased it in 2024, but sold it back to the previous owners later that year. In 2023 the group built more than 380,000 motorcycles, about 290,000 of them KTM models. In 2024 KTM entered a court-supervised restructuring, and in early 2025 Stefan Pierer began stepping back from executive roles. In November 2025 Bajaj Auto completed the acquisition of control of KTM for €800 million, raising its indirect stake to about 75%, and Pierer Mobility is set to be renamed Bajaj Mobility.

The KTM X-Bow: the only KTM car

The X-Bow ("crossbow") is an ultra-light two-seat sports car developed with the design studio Kiska, the racing-car maker Dallara and Audi, which supplied the engines. It has a carbon-fibre monocoque, a mid-mounted Audi engine and rear-wheel drive, and it is equally suited to public roads and track days. Production started in 2008 in Graz. KTM originally planned 500 cars a year, but demand was so strong that output was raised to 1,000 a year.

The basic X-Bow is an open speedster without doors or a conventional roof, and the driver and passenger sit low in the carbon tub with the engine directly behind them. Later versions moved away from this minimalist idea: the GTX and GT-XR have a closed canopy and use the 2.5-litre five-cylinder TFSI engine from Audi's RS models, such as the Audi RS Q3. The GT-XR was developed as a road-legal car derived from the racing GTX, with a top speed of 280 km/h. X-Bows are built in small numbers, and many are used on race tracks as well as on the road.

X-Bow in motorsport

The X-Bow has been the official car of the Race of Champions since 2008. In 2008 a modified X-Bow took a podium at Monza in FIA GT4 racing, and X-Bows won the Supersports class of British GT in 2009 and the GT4 championship in 2011. The factory GT4 car debuted in the GT4 European Series in 2015 and won at Zandvoort, Brett Sandberg won the Pirelli World Challenge GTS title in 2016, and a GT2 Concept raced in the GT2 European Series from 2021.

Motorsport, records and engineering firsts

Racing has always been at the heart of KTM. Its off-road motorcycles were developed through competition from the 1970s onwards, and many of its customers race at club level. After its first motocross world title in 1974, KTM became the dominant manufacturer in rally raids, winning every Dakar Rally held from 2001 to 2019, 18 in a row (the 2008 event was cancelled). It also took control of WP Suspension in 1995, giving it in-house suspension expertise, and since 2017 it has competed at the top of road racing in MotoGP. The same focus on light weight and high performance carried over to the X-Bow, whose carbon monocoque keeps the basic car below 800 kg.

The company in numbers