![]() It’s a kind of a weapon, but it’s a mechanical weapon, so the crossbow is probably the best equivalent on the arms side. We really wanted to do a mechanical car, not an electronically steered car, so that’s why the name was given. “The crossbow is the highest developed mechanical weapon, and that was the leading idea of the car in the first instance. ![]() Thus the basics of the X-BOW were set…wait, hang on…X-BOW…? “It’s basically the Lotus Super Seven of the 21st century.” It was an illustration of what KTM could do in the car world. This was always part of the concept with the X-BOW. But the design of the car still a motorcycle: we show the mechanics, we show the technical side under the skin with just a minium of fairing, and the rest is pretty visible. ![]() “That meant less weight and more power compared to a standard car, so the original car started with around 850kg and about 300hp. “The basic idea was to bring the feeling and experience of a motorcycle ride to the car industry,” Gerald continues. A machine that took Colin Chapman’s ‘add lightness’ concept and brought it into the 21st century.ġ5 years after his conceptual re-design of the KTM LC4 had effectively handed him carte blanche over the look of KTM, Gerald was given a clean sheet to work with once again…. One that characterized KTM’s philosophy of excitement and driving purity, albeit with an additional two wheels. Not even Kamaz, a 17-time winner with a further 22 podiums to its name, can boast that level of dominance on the world’s toughest rally.īut would KTM ever be ‘ready to race’ on four wheels? Such was the question posed at a meeting between Gerald Kiska and KTM CEO Stefan Pierer in late 2005, during which the “worrying state of the European motorcycle market” led to discussion of a new lightweight sports car. It would be another 19 years before anything other than a KTM won the Dakar – courtesy of Ricky Brabec’s 2020 win aboard a Honda CRF 450 Rally – by which point the Austrian marque had locked out the Bikes podium 10 times and taken 82 per cent of the podiums since 2001. Having made its debut in 1994, KTM had already secured six podium finishes in the Bikes class prior to the late Fabrizio Meoni’s wins on the event in 20. As of last year, KTM had already secured – deep breath – 96 MXGP, MX1, and MX2 world championships since 1974 114 E1, E2, E3, and Super Enduro world titles since 1990 260 titles in AMA Supercross 37 world titles in cross country rally races and is a 15-time winner of the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship. ![]() Following a re-brand as ‘ Kronreif, Trunkenpolz, Mattighofen’ in 1953 and saved from bankruptcy in 1991, KTM Sportsmotorcycle GmbH has very much become the byword for two-wheeled, off-road competition. Of course, the new X-BOW GTX is just the latest in a rich – and surprisingly long – history for the company founded as ‘Kraftfahrzeuge Trunkenpolz Mattighofen’ by engineer Hans Trunkenpolz in Mattighofen, Austria, in 1934. We asked if they could support us and they were more than happy to do that.” But KTM has always had a very close relationship to Audi. There was no way around that, and it would take a certain amount of money and time to develop a four, five or six cylinder engine. The biggest engine KTM produces for two wheelers is 180hp two-cylinder, which would be nowhere near enough to run a car proper. “We do not have car engines at KTM, and a motorcycle engine is not built for heavy vehicles. You can gain a little bit by opening the intake and exhust, but it’s not much. , we run the standard 2.5-litre standard engine without any kind of tuning. Due to the low weight of the car, it seems to be an ideal package. Very light in terms of power-to-weght ratio and it’s a brilliant piece of technology. “With the five-cylinder engine, we are quite happy because it’s a very modern engine. We wanted to test that engine under race conditions to see whether its worth incorporating into future production. “It’s a 2.5-litre, direct injection five-cylinder that provides around 420hp, compared with the GT4, which uses a 2-litre four-cylinder. ![]() “The major difference is the five-cylinder engine we got from Audi, which they use in the TT RS,” Gerald explains, a bottle of water in-hand to battle the stifling Catalan temperatures. On top of that, the 2019 24H SERIES Europe season finale is also the first real world test of not only the KTM prototype but also its brand-new, mid/rear-mounted beating heart… There’s still 16 hours of flat-out endurance racing left to run, and as we’ve seen many times in the 24H SERIES, anything can, and often does, happen. Nobody is popping champagne corks in the True-Racing trucks just yet though. ![]()
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