The Ktm X-bow Is Almost Certainly Dead

Justin Pech / KTM

KTM's been done nan wringer recently, what pinch nan bankruptcy and sales and rescue, but nan Austrian company's travel retired nan different broadside pinch astir of its parts intact. It's still kicking, still making bikes, but comments from nan company's caller CEO opportunity that nan oddest portion of nan company's lineup whitethorn beryllium owed for nan chopping block. The KTM X-Bow, its weird small solitary four-wheel roadworthy offering, whitethorn not beryllium agelong for this world. 

It was ever benignant of weird that KTM sold a car astatine all. Sure, nan marque has that "Ready to Race" pedigree, but nan X-Bow ever had incredibly constricted marketplace entreaty — astatine slightest a motorcycle tin beryllium practical, redeeming its personification connected costs comparative to a car, but nan X-Bow could ne'er beryllium an only vehicle. With nan investments successful storage, way time, and tires, nan X-Bow would ever beryllium a tougher waste than a 790 Adventure. 

Kernasenko J. / KTM

It took KTM complete a twelvemonth to sell nan first 100 X-Bow GT-XRs, and it's reliable to warrant an full helping of a institution — KTM doesn't make immoderate different cars to divided improvement costs pinch — for specified a slow-selling conveyance unless nan profit margins are genuinely massive. The institution sold a specified 36 X-Bows successful 2024, according to caller CEO Gottfried Neumeister, which is simply not enough. In Neumeister's words, "Again, a ace task and we've proven what we are tin of and person 1 of nan champion engineers successful nan world. But nan task does not thief america to waste motorcycles."

What remains to beryllium seen now is what happens to nan X-Bows already retired there. Do their used-car values climb, since nan proviso becomes constrained, aliases do group awkward distant from a track-focused supercar from a shaper that nary longer makes that product? Does KTM's existing reputation, for products meant much for nan bully clip than nan agelong time, extremity nan needle? Am I conscionable bringing these up successful hopes that X-Bows get ace inexpensive connected Marketplace soon? Who's to say. 

h/t RideApart