Goes around comes around
By John Dickinson on 6th Jul 07
WELCOME to issue 1568, which no doubt will be referred to in some quarters as Trials and KTMNews!
Nothing new there of course, over 30 years, we've had the lot. Trials and Hondacross News, Trials and GasGas News, Trials and KawasakiNews, Trials and MontesaNews, etc, etc.
It's all part of the wheel of life and, as the Yanks like to say, what goes around comes around. All manufacturers go through periods of innovation, popularity, expansion, or whatever when, for some reason they can do no wrong – just as surely as they can suddenly ‘hit the wall' and for no good reason cease to be flavour of the month, pull on the reins, dive under the bedclothes and hang in there, waiting for wheels to turn and for their return into the spotlight. Sometimes it can be a long, long, wait.
At the moment, even its biggest enemies couldn't deny that this is KTM's moment. The Austrian off-road specialist seems to have virtually everything going for it. The re-born European manufacturer has broken the Japanese domination of the marketplace and now firmly sets the trends, rather than merely reacting to them.
This week, following a well-orchestrated launch of its 2008 models – another area where it leads the field – we feature the '08 enduro range which comprises class-leading two-strokes and four-strokes of all capacities. Leading the way is a brand-new 450 model with an engine developed solely for enduro. Not a compromised MX motor but a full-on, ground-up enduro engine.
Due to the sheer number of enduro models, you will have to wait until next week before we can give the MX range its due with, again, another bang-on mix of state-of-the-art screamers and thumpers.
For several years now though, KTM has been spreading its wings in other directions, seeing the road bike market as the way to expand. Instead of trying to re-invent the wheel they have done this firstly by stealth, adapting single-cylinder off-road models into Supermoto hybrids before taking this a stage further with V-twin versions on a similar theme.
They have achieved publicity and introduced road-rider (and general public) awareness of the KTM brand and of its expansion by entering the 125cc and 250cc MotoGP classes with single and twin-cylinder two-strokes which more than hold their own against specialist Honda and Aprilia opposition.
And it may surprise some readers to learn that two out of three support classes at the recent Donington MotoGP were exclusively KTM. The first was the Red Bull Rookies class, for up-and-coming talent, where KTM supply a full-house of absolutely identical GP-style 125 two-strokes. And did they look good.
The second exclusive-to-KTM support race was the slightly more off-beat Super Duke race for the big 1000cc V-twin road bikes. With a claimed crowd of 78,000 at Donington you can't deny that it was a brilliant coupe to get the name KTM up in lights. KTM knows it will take a lot to prize the knee-scrapers off their Blades, Gixxers, R1s, Ducatis etc, and is playing the long game, although it is making a very short job of it!
All of this is not to suggest that KTM's actual wares are any better or worse than any other manufacturers at present. What it does prove beyond doubt is that the Austrian bosses are working their butts off, ensuring that the firm is moving steadily forward to a firmly set plan and that they are determined to get absolutely maximum exposure and publicity out of each and every step they take.
A full-on V-twin Superbike is the next step to being accepted as a mainstream road bike manufacturer, rather than one which makes quirky off-road based models, along with entering the World Superbike Championship.
Beyond that, who knows? The people in Austria obviously, and the sky is the limit. They already have a completely new venture, a unique two-seater sports car, heading for production at a new facility with reported forward orders of 800 out of a planned initial run of 1000.
With all these plans, the question will eventually arise as to whether KTM will ultimately lose focus on off-road. At the moment, the expansion is based on the company's off-road success and it is clearly doing a brilliant job. But as it grows and expands ever bigger and diversifies more and more this will not always be the case.
The Japanese still produce awesome, quality off-road machines although it is obvious that their world does not revolve around our sport, they remain almost totally pre-occupied with their race-replica sports bikes.
So, while KTM remains 100% focussed on its off-road development, as it clearly does at the moment with no sign of
compromise whatsoever, they will naturally reap the benefit. Which is where we
came in...