KTM's massive TRANSFORMATION from QUIRKY dirt bike maker to GLOBAL MOBILITY company
A long-time US KTM employee described in the early days when the head of the company mortgaged his house to buy some box vans. Contrast this to KTM's American HQ opened in 2023 that cost $53 million and racing on the world stage from hard enduro to MotoGP. Yes, a lot has changed for KTM, once the builder of quirky dirt bikes but now making every kind of motorcycle with an obsession for high-performance and light weight, and growing across brands that include Husqvarna, GasGas, MV Agusta, and ebikes under the Pierer Mobility umbrella. Where did KTM come from and where is it going? Listen to take the ride with Kevin Cameron and Mark Hoyer.
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SportsTranscript
00:00Welcome back to the CycleWorld Podcast.
00:04I'm Mark Hoyer, the Editor-in-Chief, and I'm with Kevin Cameron, our Technical Editor.
00:10This week we're here to talk about the massive transformation of KTM, and eventually I guess
00:16we'll get to Pure Mobility as well, but KTM was a quirky little dirt bike maker.
00:23One of the guys over there tells a story about how the U.S. boss CEO mortgaged his house
00:27to buy a couple box vans, and look at them now, global player, racing MotoGP, dominating
00:39the dirt market, certainly in the luxury areas of the world, the United States, can't go
00:44dual sport riding without seeing a fleet of orange bikes, and for good reason.
00:50And then of course on the street side, and adventure bike side, just massive evolution
00:56and domination in so many ways, and certainly have to laud them for their, what do you call
01:06it, brand focus, we'll say something along those lines.
01:08Brand focus, ready to race, et cetera, hardcore, they don't deviate, we're not seeing big cruisers
01:18out of KTM, we're not going to see retro scramblers out of KTM, we're just seeing dirt chucking,
01:24tire smoking, wheelie popping, you know, hit it hard motorcycles.
01:29And it seems that there's no room for the product cheapening department, because those
01:34PCD men love to come in there and take the sharp edge off what you're doing.
01:39Oh, don't bring up sharp edges, that's a sore point for me with KTM styling, just in the
01:46sense that I think Kiska is their design company, and I think I've always thought that they
01:52get, for KTM anyway, they get paid by the point, they just put more points on it.
01:58Yeah, the number of sharp points.
02:00And to Kiska's credit, they've done a beautiful job not putting points on Husqvarna, but it's
02:06a joke around here.
02:07Sure enough.
02:08Well, I think that it's a remarkable transformation because the original KTM company began operating
02:18in 1934 as a kind of a repair shop, and they started manufacturing things.
02:27And after the war, they began to make little motorbikes like so many companies.
02:37And what strikes me is that they easily made the two-stroke to four-stroke leap.
02:48I mean, it looks easy.
02:50They made the leap from having the kind of dealers who would have low production dirt
02:57bikes, and I visited a few here in Massachusetts, a dirt floor of an old barn.
03:04They got a dealership because they wanted the parts discount, not because they thought
03:08they could sell a lot of Makos.
03:12So I think it's wonderfully remarkable that they were able to, for example, build all
03:19those Pentons from 68 to 78, and they seemed to say yes to every good opportunity.
03:32And then the day came in the new century when the production of on-road bikes exceeded
03:41that of off-road.
03:44And what had to happen at each of these points is that true believers of the previous faith
03:51had to either convert or be replaced.
03:54And that's not easy.
03:57It's not easy.
03:58And then in 2007, they got into financial difficulties, and the best way out seemed
04:07to be this arrangement with the Indian company, Bajaj.
04:12And it has worked well because Bajaj had some money, KTM needed it to pay for plant expansion
04:22and for their rapid pace of R&D, without which none of this would exist.
04:31They would still be making little, undistinguished machines that had a fanatical following.
04:39Well, that's the brand essence, is that very thing.
04:43I go back to the 2017 KTM 500 EXE-F dual sport, because it had already smashed, I mean,
04:53it was already the enduro with lights, it was already the very high horsepower we dyno,
04:57I think like a 2018 we dynoed it like 45 horsepower in emissions-compliant form.
05:05Incredibly lightweight.
05:06The 2017, so prior to 2017, they'd already dominated, it was already like dual sport
05:11KTMs everywhere, guys riding, you know, $100,000 worth of KTMs.
05:16And then everybody's wearing like climb gear and spending a zillion dollars on that stuff.
05:22And it had already happened, they're already owning it.
05:25And then the 2017 comes out and it's 10 pounds lighter than the 2016, and it made more power.
05:32It was something like, I don't know, six horsepower or something.
05:35I don't have that in front of me, but 10 pounds lighter, already the lightest, already the
05:41highest performance one you could get.
05:44And why not just knock another 10 pounds off it?
05:46Like if I'm in product planning, I'm like, hey, can we do five this year and then five
05:50more in two years?
05:51What do you think?
05:52Spread it out a little bit, but that's the brand, sorry, but that's the brand essence
05:59to me is like, we are, there is no stopping.
06:03There were other transitions.
06:05Of course, they did very well in the Dakar Rally with their singles for a long time.
06:13And at one point, engineering students took LC four cylinders and made a common crank
06:21case and crankshaft for them as a student project.
06:25And around 98, the big cheeses at KTM said, let's do that.
06:35And they had previously looked into road versions of their single cylinder stuff and with the
06:44earth pounding the daylights out of you, you don't mind so much if the engine is pounding
06:49you as well.
06:50But when you get on pavement, the vibration becomes attention getting, it gets your focus.
06:58So they just designed counterbalances and put them in there.
07:04Problem solved.
07:05I think even in the dirt though, the 640, we had a 640 long-term bike that was, Oh my
07:09gosh.
07:10That was a notorious vibrator and it would pound you on road or off.
07:15Not like the people said about the 450 Desmo Ducati that it had lovely power, but you couldn't
07:23stay on it for long.
07:25The old 450, the 70s 450, not the thing that they're working on now, not the motocross
07:30that they're working on now.
07:33So it just seems like they took these transitions in their stride and, Oh, we're going to become
07:42a 49.9% Indian company.
07:46Let's do that.
07:47Don't have a choice.
07:48We need the money.
07:50And you were saying the other day that the brand is doing well in India.
07:57And I found that the production of motorcycles by this group, which includes KTM, the total
08:07production for 2023 was 380,000 motorbikes, which in Europe is a big number.
08:19And 280,000 of those were KTMs, you know, badged KTM.
08:26So this just, this seems very attractive to me.
08:31And I went to the show when they introduced what, LC8 and, you know, the engine's about
08:37this big.
08:38It's about, it seems like it's about as big as your head and yet there's a substantial
08:45bore and stroke in there and all kinds of valves and gears, cams and linkages.
08:55And I think that they have won a lot of friends, just as a Bloor's Triumph organization in
09:03England has done by under porting their engines so that the emphasis is on acceleration more
09:13than it is on what's the top speed, man.
09:17Because when you're on a motorcycle, what you experience is acceleration.
09:22That's the part that takes your breath away or doesn't.
09:26And again and again, engines that were top end only have been fixed by boring the straight
09:33part of the intake ports in the head and sleeving them down.
09:39Sometimes only a 16th of an inch can make all the difference.
09:43And Udo Giedl, to whom I was speaking 10 minutes ago, by the way, put that Venturi
09:52in his BMW's intake ports, which accomplishes the same thing.
09:57It boosts velocity at mid-range RPM, thereby giving you acceleration.
10:08And of course, we have to remember dear old Don Tilley saying, well, sir, I got to tell
10:19you, them young fellers love the big numbers, but we won a lot of races using horsepower
10:26averaged over the RPM range actually used on the track, because you don't spend any
10:34time at peak power.
10:35Not much.
10:36You go up occasionally, go up and touch it, and then you're off doing something else.
10:42So if the engine has a solid mid-range, it's going to feel like an exciting ride.
10:47Well, in the dirt, what do you want?
10:49You want to be able to spin the tire at will, controllably, or lift the front end at will
10:55whenever you need to.
10:56It's something that I had to give up because I have a WR250R dual sport bike, and I built
11:01it into my little adventure bike and has a lot of range, huge tank and suspension set
11:06up for my size, et cetera.
11:09But you kind of give up the instant wheelie thing that you would get from a KTM 350 or
11:13500.
11:14It's just a completely different design ethic.
11:17And of course, the displacement's 250cc, so you don't have that instant torque, that oomph
11:25to do it.
11:26Well, they kept making the LC8 bigger, bigger, bigger, and people liked it, so they made
11:35it bigger again.
11:36Yeah.
11:37Well, you have your menu with KTM.
11:41You can choose lots of different displacements, parallel twin it, V-twin it.
11:45Yeah, from 2017, which, as I said, was a happening year.
11:49That's when they did the parallel twin 790, and a friend of mine has one of those.
11:56It's John Owens, the photographer.
12:00And he likes his motorcycle very much.
12:05The 950, the 950 back sort of 06 was a real revelation, so we did a comparison test in
12:12the mountains sort of south of Yosemite, and we had Gary Jones on that one, and we had
12:20our dirt guy at the time, Ryan Dudek, a world-class, national-level off-road rider of great talent.
12:29And we went up into the mountains and bashed around on a HP2 BMW, the off-road flat twin,
12:35their sort of high-performance version they were doing at the time, and some singles,
12:40a Husky and a XR650.
12:41And we had a KTM 950, and it was really the first time I'd hammered on one of those off-road,
12:48and it rode like a dirt bike.
12:49I mean, it was bigger, you know, it was 400-plus pounds and all of that, but you could ride
12:54that motorcycle into a corner, lean it over, hit the throttle, and it would pivot like
13:02a dirt bike.
13:03It did everything like a dirt bike, it just was bigger.
13:07And then you could click it into top gear on the freeway and go 85 miles an hour for,
13:12you know, as long as you want, essentially.
13:15And it was a real big difference, you know, the R1300GS now and the 1250 before and 1200
13:22and all that.
13:23You know, that has a very distinct BMW personality, and they're very true to their ethic with
13:29that bike, but it isn't the narrow, lightweight, hardcore, shreddable adventure bike.
13:36And even the big, big KTMs, you know, they are big, you know, get up to your 1300 and
13:41all that, but they still keep that feeling, essentially.
13:47And it's remarkable, and it's the focus of the company.
13:51That's what, to me, has been so remarkable in the recent, you know, span of time is how
14:00focused they are on that pure technical ethic.
14:04Well, this is what they said is that our management, we keep our management close to product.
14:14And that means they can't just barricade themselves in a boardroom with a lot of bad
14:20coffee and say, we have test riders, go test it yourself.
14:27They have to ride the things.
14:28They have to enjoy what's enjoyable and criticize what needs criticism.
14:36And having, because what management has is decision-making power.
14:41It's all very well if a bunch of NCOs say, you know, this armored personnel carrier has
14:46certain problems.
14:48Well, we don't want to hear that.
14:52And the people upstairs don't want to hear it even more than we don't.
14:56So there has to be a connection between what is being learned and the people who can make
15:03decisions.
15:04Now we've seen that high company management can say, get somebody big on this MotoGP bike
15:12and let's see some results.
15:15But those people are so high up, they don't realize that you can't hire a corner speed
15:21rider to make fast laps on a point and shoot bike.
15:26They are differently engineered, but only trackside people seem to know that.
15:31So if they have a positive program for keeping management engaged with product, I think that
15:38is tremendous.
15:39Well, I think my observation over the decades in the industry is that this is a religion.
15:49You have to be a true believer.
15:52And the people who last in the industry and go on and on are the ones who actually spend
15:57money, their own money on motorcycles.
16:00Even if you're in our role and you're getting test bikes and test bikes, I have blown stupid
16:06money on motorcycles that have nothing to do with my day job.
16:10I mean, they do have something to do with it.
16:12But I think observing that across, you see people who really truly do live it and can
16:21ride the motorcycles very hard and they know the difference.
16:25That's the thing.
16:26What's the thing in life?
16:27Knowing the difference.
16:29If you get people in management who know the difference and go out and ride and really
16:33live it, then you have someone who can, they don't need to understand the customer because
16:39essentially they are the customer and you can't buy that.
16:43You can't pretend that.
16:46I've had conversations with higher ups at other companies that, you know, I met with
16:55a guy and we were talking about motorcycles and he said, oh gosh, it's so beautiful today
17:02and I forgot to ride my motorcycle to work.
17:06And I thought, oh, now I know who you are.
17:11You know, like forgot?
17:13I don't think so.
17:15Come on.
17:16I mean, it's just, yeah.
17:17So that you do get that feeling from KTM that there's a very, a very hardcore focus on them.
17:25On riding and living it.
17:27Now there, there are, anything can be overdone.
17:31I went to the 2004, I think that was the intro of the twin.
17:37And everywhere you look where men, some of them with limps, you know, aren't shirts.
17:47And the impression that I got from what people were saying was we're KTM and we're here to
17:53crush everything.
17:54Well, they've done very well in attempted crushing, but MotoGP is a hard chew and they've
18:06stuck with it.
18:09There've been a couple of times that their bikes look like, oh, oh, the KTM's on its
18:13way now.
18:15And then, oh, it's run out of gas, but they're sticking with it.
18:22And I suspect that they will master the subject because that's what happens if you keep trying
18:32using all the technology available with people who know how to use it.
18:40So I was very pleased, for example, to see one of these people said, overall, everything
18:53becomes more difficult because exhaust gas legislation is getting more restrictive.
18:59Now here's the punchline.
19:02The art of this process is to actually augment very good drivability.
19:12Now what that means is the exhaust gas sniffing people want there to be no valve overlap at
19:21all because that's a time when fresh charge coming in the intake port can go straight
19:27out the exhaust and into the atmosphere where the EPA or other responsible organization
19:33is waiting to detect it.
19:37So they said, how can we make the power that our customers want without all this valve
19:45timing?
19:46And what they had to do was increase valve acceleration using what had been learned in
19:54racing so that they can have what is essentially a square cam profile that opens the valve
20:03and closes it in very little time to a large lift.
20:09And the result of that is what I have been calling the Euro 5 torque curve, which is
20:14flat as a table, or the Mesa of torque.
20:24And people love this.
20:26As you said, if you're riding in dirt, you need the torque to control a bike at whatever
20:33RPM you find yourself because when things are happening fast, engine management is an
20:40extra task.
20:43So you'd like the engine to just be ready to say, sir, yes, sir, at any RPM.
20:50And this has been an accomplishment in large part of KTM, and everyone is doing it now
20:58because it's what you have to do to combine good performance with low unburned hydrocarbon
21:05emissions.
21:11I was delighted to see that little item in one of the things that I read.
21:16Well, I will give them credit also, they're doing the broad torque curve, but they're
21:24also making their crankshafts very light, their 790s and so forth, their engine response
21:31and that connection with the throttle and the ability to control the rear wheel essentially
21:35is what I want more, I want less.
21:42Is it intuitive?
21:43I'm not sure it's intuitive, right?
21:45Is it actually intuitive, but it's certainly what we've learned and that you can get that
21:55and that someone can design control, this control into the motorcycle.
22:00It's pretty amazing.
22:01Yeah.
22:02Anyway, they like their light rotational masses for sure.
22:08Well, anyone that's ridden one of the old time singles with a 35 pound crankshaft knows
22:15the opposite end point of that equation.
22:22Turn the throttle and the engine looks around at you and said, did you want something?
22:28And all that crank mass is taking time to gather speed.
22:34So yes, it makes sense.
22:42These are benefits of not going after the big numbers that Don Tilley talked about.
22:52The young fellers love them big numbers.
22:56And it used to be in the 1970s that the two things people wanted to know about any motorcycle
23:02is what's the quarter mile time, what's the top speed.
23:07And that created habits in management that have been significantly hard to break.
23:14And I think that KTM has taken care of business in acceleration, in the mid range, in responsiveness,
23:25the things that you're praising about the machines you've ridden.
23:30Good stuff.
23:31Top speed, I mean, top speed anymore.
23:34We limit everything to 186 and so gosh darn it.
23:42And then also, we got to a point where we were testing 600s and we had one that went
23:47like 167 or 170 miles an hour, a 600 in line four.
23:53And you think to yourself, well, I guess that's relevant.
23:56I mean, it's interesting and it's fun.
23:58But it's, you know, what do we experience every day on a street bike?
24:03Yeah.
24:04Rolling into it.
24:05And I've been riding.
24:06What are people actually doing?
24:07Yeah.
24:08The team here has been working on a sort of the new middleweight sport bike comparison
24:13test.
24:14We have an R7, we have a Suzuki GSX-8R and a Daytona 660 Triumph Triple.
24:22And they're all mid range motors.
24:25They're all Euro 5 torque curves, as you say.
24:29They're just, they're great.
24:30And I've been hypermiling them a little bit just to see if we short shift, we get up to
24:37six gear, you know, at 30 miles an hour, what can we squeeze out of the MPGs and we're right
24:42around 70.
24:43Yeah, that's good.
24:44Because there have been so many motorcycles that get worse mileage than my four-door.
24:52Oh, 2004 MV Agusta Brutale 750.
24:57I called Araldo Ferracci because I had that bike as a long-term bike.
25:02Because we had a Suzuki GSX-R 750, same year, 126 horsepower at the wheel and 43, 45 miles
25:11per gallon if you rode it nice.
25:14And I call Araldo and I'm like, I've done everything Araldo, I've done pipe, I've done
25:19like a tuning box.
25:21I've leaned it out, I've done all the things and I can't get better than like 27 miles
25:25per gallon.
25:26Like, where's it going?
25:27And he's like, ah, I got the Araldo response, but he did talk about how they had shortened
25:32the primary ratio to try to limit the top speed of that particular bike.
25:37But anyway, there has been a variety of MPGs available and gosh, have we gotten some low
25:43mileage during testing.
25:46Well, Claudio Domenicali, who's currently CEO of Ducati, once said to me that it would
25:58be so easy to make a ton of horsepower by just closing the intake valves later.
26:09When you do that, and that's what I suspect is going on with that early MV, is it had
26:16a lot of valve overlap and late intake closing.
26:20When you do that, it kills the bottom end dead and it makes the mid-range all pale and
26:28feeble.
26:31And the way it does it is at high speed, the intake velocity is high.
26:39When the intake valves are still open for a long distance after your bottom dead center,
26:44that hurricane of wind just keeps coasting into the cylinder and the piston is rising
26:50and the wind just keeps blowing.
26:52And finally the valve closes and the air bounces off of it and then you've got a big mouthful
26:57of air in there.
26:58But at lower crankshaft speed, the piston starts to rise.
27:03There's no velocity, there's no hurricane.
27:06So the piston just pushes that mixture back out of the cylinder, up the intake pipe, and
27:13causes the inside of the airbox to be wet.
27:18So no mid-range, but it used to be considered acceptable.
27:26And you learned to ride a bike like that.
27:28There are lots of people out there who say, I love my 600s and I love the way I had to
27:35ride them.
27:36So you get used to it and then that's the way it ought to be.
27:40Well, you know, everything reminds me of something else, right Kevin?
27:46That's how it gets with you.
27:48Everything reminds you of something else.
27:49I make it a habit of talking to people who are riding motorcycles, wherever I go.
27:53I go to dealerships in new towns or if I, you know, we have an office in Knoxville,
27:57Tennessee for a UTV driver.
27:58If I go there, I want to go to the motorcycle shop, talk to the people there and talk to
28:02the customers.
28:03So I was on my way to Las Vegas quite a while ago, probably Suzuki dealer meeting at some
28:12point in the past.
28:15And here's a kid at the gas station on an R6.
28:18So you know, the 15,000, 16,000, 17,500 RPM, almost, engine.
28:25It was impressive.
28:27So here's this kid on the bike and he's on the 15, you know, in Barstow or something.
28:36And okay, what's going on, dude?
28:40How are you doing?
28:41Oh, good, man.
28:42How do you like your R6?
28:43He's like, oh, it's all right.
28:44I'm like, oh, you don't sound like super stoked.
28:49And he's like, well, I said, did you have something else before?
28:53And he's like, yeah, I had a 636.
28:55But I wanted this one because it was like real, you know, this is hardcore, but I kind
29:01of liked the 636 better, you know?
29:04And he was talking about torque because he had, I mean, the R6 is like, it was awesome.
29:10It was such a scalpel.
29:11It was so amazing when it came out and recalibration of your brain for turn in at the track, because
29:16it would just, you'd get off a 636, which was pretty nice, but it was very couch, like
29:20very soft and it had, you know, a nice torque and everything, but man, you got an R6, it
29:24was like, wham to the apex.
29:25You had to really focus on it.
29:27And then of course you had to keep it in the power band, which was exceptionally high up
29:31in the, in the rev range, the overlap, the duration, I think was, I think on inter introduction,
29:37we were like looking at 292 or something, or it might've been 272.
29:41It was quite long and, um, they would just get on at, you know, 7,000, 10,000, ah, you
29:49know, just, right.
29:50And the six, he, so anyway, he was disappointed in his R6, but he'd made the commitment and
29:56he owned it and he was riding it on the freeway and the 636, you know, better street bike
30:01really was just had more torque and softer and, you know, just like more satisfying winding
30:07down a back road.
30:08You didn't have to rub the daylights out of it.
30:10Well, a few years ago, a few years ago, um, I think I wrote about parallel twins and I
30:17realized while, while I was writing it, that the parallel twin with the kind of flat torque
30:25that they have makes a better rider out of an average person than those extreme, uh,
30:34600s.
30:36And so many people have said, oh, they're just making twins now.
30:41Things are kind of cooled off.
30:43It's what a bore because every year, you know, there used to be that big horsepower
30:47increase and you'd hear all these top speed numbers from Daytona.
30:51That's exciting, but it goes in the class with them young fellers sure love the big
30:57numbers.
30:58No, there's definitely, you know, there's a piece of our audience that's really mad
31:03about the parallel twin sport bikes, you know, I want, I want them to at least have the information
31:09available.
31:10Go ahead.
31:11Go give one a try.
31:12Yeah.
31:13You may find that point A to point B is quite impressive because of what you can do on those
31:19bikes that you couldn't do on a, on a narrow power band, 600.
31:23Yeah.
31:24Well, what do we say about V4 Ducatis and, and, uh, 190 horsepower BMW M 1000 RRs?
31:35I mean, they do have the torque, but, uh, that's almost a different class of motorcycle
31:40at this point.
31:41It is.
31:42Absolutely.
31:43It's a supernatural.
31:45It's like those, uh, four cylinder Fiat's that they bring to a Goodwood and start them
31:51up.
31:52They've got exhaust stubs on her about this long and big flame comes out and the engine
31:56sits here and, uh, yes, the beast of Turin and many others like it.
32:06And they, they're fabulous to look back upon, but you wouldn't want one.
32:15And the thing about those thousands, those 200 horsepower bikes is that they are an ultimate
32:20and there were always be people who are attracted to that.
32:24And when I asked Claudio Domenicali about why in a world of rapidly decreasing interest
32:32in sport bikes, are you making this thousand CC V4 or 1100?
32:39He said, our riders expect the maximum from us and we're obliged to give it to them.
32:49Yeah, it's exquisite.
32:51And they're not, you know, I mean, in the peak, the peak years of 600 sales, you know,
32:55in oh six before the crash, oh six was a pretty darn good year for sales.
33:00Good year in the magazine business.
33:02Uh, and 20,600 from one manufacturer in the United States.
33:10A hundred, yeah, more, more than a hundred and I don't want to say 115, 120,000 units
33:16and the 600 class period.
33:20Pretty amazing.
33:21Good one.
33:23Well, people like change, they like contrast.
33:27And of course, that's one of the reasons for the color orange and the origami styling is
33:34that it really stood out.
33:37It made KTMs get your attention.
33:41Well, they got your attention and they put meaning behind it.
33:44That's the thing is that, yeah, it wasn't just a, just a, uh, uh, a cardboard outline
33:50of the presidential candidate.
33:52Well, you know what it means.
33:53It's like when the Hayabusa came out, it was so mind blowing.
33:57Like it just like, what is this amorphous thing with all these bulges and all this
34:04other stuff?
34:04And it's like, you know what that is?
34:06Well, the, the, but the Hayabusa, Hayabusa put meaning behind it.
34:09And what that is, is the world's fastest motorcycle and that, and now we know what
34:14it, we know what it means.
34:16We know what it looks like and we know what it, what it does.
34:20And that's, what's, what's that's KTM.
34:23And you know, it's all been meaningful.
34:28It's, you know, it's, we're not playing dress up.
34:30We're doing it exactly what we said we're going to do, which is be ready to race.
34:35Again, I think that it's phenomenal that they were able to make all those transitions
34:39from two stroke to four stroke, from singles to twins, uh, from V twins to parallel
34:46twins, uh, constantly doing whatever was necessary.
34:51Oh, the singles vibrate too much.
34:53We'll put counterbalances in the street ones.
34:56And, uh, however, whatever the problem was, they were ready to tackle it and to help
35:05tackle some of those problems.
35:07They bought Ponkel who for many years have been suppliers of high class titanium
35:13connecting rods for all sorts of, uh, adventure.
35:19And WP.
35:20Yes.
35:20White power.
35:22Um, suspension because again, one of the greatest problems of corporate
35:30life is internal communication.
35:35And we were just talking about that in terms of keeping management
35:39in contact with product.
35:40But, uh, I think that if, if you've got a suspension manufacturer that you can go
35:48over to the guy's office, talk about it, you're going to get a better response than
35:54if you, uh, let, um, a proposal for, for, uh, people to quote on.
36:04Oh, in six months, we'll have all the proposals and then we'll be able to take
36:09another six months thinking about it.
36:11Well, if you're somebody small, like zero, you know, you have zero electric
36:14motorcycles, especially some years ago, they couldn't get show it to pick up the
36:18phone when they were trying, they were, they were using like these, you know,
36:23mountain bikes, suspension companies.
36:25And they were just, they were finding whoever would, whoever might make them
36:28something because to zero's credit there, they've been trying very hard to really
36:32make a motorcycle, you know, all along.
36:35We want to make a legit, you know, a legit motorcycle, put development
36:39behind it, make it into a real thing.
36:41And, um, it took a long time for them to even get show at a care at all.
36:47And if you own the company, you know, zero has no chance of owning show or any,
36:51any other suspension company probably at this point, but the, you know, yeah, if
36:55you, if you own the company and you, you can have that partnership and get
36:59somebody in a room and say, Hey, look, we got to, this is what we want to do.
37:03And this is how, you know, what do you think?
37:04Yeah.
37:05You get better, better response.
37:06Yeah, certainly.
37:09And of course that, that same thing is, is discussed in the many books that have
37:14been written about Lockheed's, uh, skunk works and they aren't the only company
37:23who has discovered that if you have a program that is behind schedule and over
37:29budget, you take engineers off the project.
37:33You don't add more because again, in this case, the trouble is internal
37:39communication.
37:41If you have a tight group of people working on a project, they can be
37:45discussing it the whole time that they're working on it.
37:50And they become more like a single entity.
37:53That's getting stuff done rather than, uh, uh, we, we were scheduled to test
37:59today, but these, uh, individuals over here.
38:02I won't characterize them further.
38:04Uh, didn't produce their part of the project on time.
38:08So we're going to, we're going to twiddle our thumbs today instead of testing.
38:13I think it is also the difference between actual ideas and opinions.
38:20If you get a very small group focused on a problem, I think you're more inclined.
38:27To get people to actually talk about ideas than it is to have an opinion.
38:31Like, I don't think, you know, I mean, we, we see this in the creative side of
38:35the business where you can take a very delicate little idea that can just be.
38:40Smashed out.
38:42It might have a little vibe to it, like something it's making people
38:45smile in the conversation.
38:47And you're like, Hey, what about this?
38:50It's very easy to crush that out.
38:52If there's a lot of people, because there's all, you can always focus on the
38:56problem while we can't, the problem with that is, and then you're done.
39:01And in England, the concept of the jet engine, which was, was being
39:06proposed by Frank Whittle, the RAF and the air ministry hired specialists to
39:17say things, to tell the world why it was impossible and it couldn't work.
39:23And they kept on like that until Whittle produced results that
39:29were so, that couldn't be denied.
39:31And at that point they said, well, fine.
39:33Uh, thanks Frank.
39:36It was your duty to develop this.
39:38You're a serving officer of the RAF now get lost.
39:42And they took it over and years and years later they thought, Oh,
39:47is Frank still living?
39:48Yeah, he's, he's in Florida.
39:50Let's give him a ride on Concorde and send him some money.
39:53Uh, a hundred thousand pounds do it.
39:57And to continue with the aviation thing, George Meade, who was a big engineer at
40:05Pratt and Whitney in the early days said that corporate meetings consist
40:12of men comparing their prejudices.
40:16You were talking about ideas and if you're facing problems that are in front
40:21of you, that's the only thing that anyone is interested in.
40:26But if you're, if you're discussing stuff as though, as if they were
40:30ethereal entities in the sky, it can turn into an academic Senate and you
40:37won't get anything done in a week.
40:43So yes, I'm for, I'm for small tight groups of motivated people who are
40:50allowed to do what they're capable of.
40:54We'd all like to do that.
40:57Yeah.
40:57But most jobs just have you sitting there when this phone rings, do this.
41:03Somebody puts a paper in that box, do this to it and put it in that box.
41:08Uh huh.
41:13I think it must be, dare we say exciting.
41:17Well, it's cool to, to work on the new idea, you know, it is like every
41:22story is a different story.
41:23How are you going to treat it?
41:25So it's always new, new ideas, talking to people who work, you know, worked
41:29on the product directly on the product.
41:32I would love to see inside of a KTM MotoGP engine.
41:35How about you?
41:36Sure.
41:38Talk to people who are in there breaking stuff in the dino cell, because you
41:41can do all the design you want and you can do all the design that you want.
41:45Cause you can do all the design you want, but you still got to break stuff.
41:49That's the, that's the beauty is it really is sausage making.
41:51You got to get in there and blow it up.
41:56Well, it's, yeah, especially if you're, if you're doing what engineering is
41:59supposed to do, which is do the most you can with the least you have, that is how
42:05light can we make the connecting rod and have it be unburstable for our application?
42:10Yeah.
42:11Um, that's why I have such a respect for KTM is that they, they never
42:17seem to stop thinking about that.
42:19I'm delighted that the weight conversation has finally entered
42:23the room at Harley Davidson.
42:25Yeah.
42:26After, after many decades of like, yeah, whatever victory was, was good
42:32with that a number of years ago.
42:33They, uh, while victory was still being produced, they, uh, lightened
42:37all their wheels significantly.
42:40And nothing, nothing but good comes of that.
42:44And, um, you know, KTM, that's the core of KTMs ethic there.
42:51Yeah.
42:53Have to, uh, keep the physics in mind.
42:56Yeah.
42:56I'm, I'm interested, uh, from the branding perspective, you know, there will
43:01be no retro KTM that I could ever see.
43:03You just like, what, what would that be?
43:05Are we going to build the pen?
43:06No, there's no retro KTM.
43:10Um, Husky kind of takes that for them.
43:12They, you know, they own Husqvarna and, uh, there, there is a retro vibe to Husky.
43:18You know, they aren't, they aren't playing just straight up retro card, but
43:22there's a definite design ethic there.
43:24And as much as it's a KTM company, there's a Scandinavian feel that they're
43:30able to execute with the design.
43:32And then they picked up gas gas and I don't know what, you know,
43:36what are they doing with gas gas?
43:37Is that the, the party good time, lower cost brand maybe, but they're,
43:44you know, they got road racers called gas gases too.
43:47So what's next?
43:51Well, uh, these companies do what's possible for them.
43:56And it's curious to see a Honda and Yamaha having such trouble in
44:01MotoGP because they were, they were the two great, the towering sources of
44:07power in the class, in the series.
44:10Uh, not that long ago.
44:13And now they're there in the wilderness.
44:18So we're wondering whether they will come staggering into the
44:21light with, with the new truth.
44:25Or whether they'll decide, um, well, we're serving our clients in Southeast
44:31Asia and that's our core business now.
44:38I think, uh, KTM, uh, by having a relationship in India have connected
44:46themselves, uh, in a business sense with expanding middle classes.
44:53This is what's happening in Asia is that people have come from poverty
44:59to prosperity in a very short time.
45:02And once people get some money, they want a fridge and they want a TV and
45:07they postpone having that fourth child.
45:11And they're heading to Europe where towards the condition of Europe, where
45:16people have 1.5 children and need to entertain themselves.
45:22And a motorcycle is pretty entertaining.
45:26So, uh, I think it's highly progressive for, for KTM to be looking, paying
45:34attention to Asia where middle classes are expanding, that's what happened
45:40when Honda and the other Japanese manufacturers came to the U S beginning
45:45in 1959, because the U S was experiencing its powerful post-war boom.
45:53And people had plenty of disposable cabbage and lots and lots of
46:01little motorbikes all of a sudden.
46:03And I think, uh, KTM's expansion from, from producing 12,000
46:11specialist, uh, little motorbikes to 380,000 in 2023.
46:20I'm impressed.
46:21Well, visiting, uh, visiting the headquarters, uh, not far
46:24from our office here in Irvine.
46:26Um, what you're struck by is there isn't a 19 foot KTM sign
46:33greeting you at the campus.
46:34It's a beautiful new campus and Dino Roger DeCoster's there.
46:40Roger's got his mill in the shop, you know, and then you walk by there's
46:43engine building stations and suspension.
46:46It is, it is amazing.
46:48But what it says on the outside in very, very large letters is pure mobility.
46:54And that is, that is looking that allows saying pure mobility
46:58allows you to say bicycles.
47:00It allows you to, to do all these different things.
47:02And as you say, where's, where's the middle-class exploding.
47:06You know, if you look at what Royal Enfield has done and is doing, we want
47:10to dominate the middleweight market and we want to do it in those emerging,
47:14you know, India for one, India was a massively different country than I
47:19visited in 2008 and you, you just see it.
47:22You see them middle-class exploding and Enfield is there and they're
47:28building a product line to satisfy that Brazil, big motorcycle market,
47:34middle-class, all the Asian markets.
47:37It's really a pure mobility gets, gets them into whatever that looks like.
47:43And you know, they're, they are a luxury manufacturer for
47:47high-performance motorcycles.
47:50Uh, whether it's incredibly accurate forecasting and product planning,
47:58or just gut feeling like, eh, let's bring in this many, but you know, the KTM
48:03500, they don't sort of undermine the value, uh, by flooding the market.
48:08They have the margin.
48:09They bring in seemingly the right number of motorcycles and
48:13the used five hundreds remain valuable.
48:18And I tell you what, like what a commitment, you know, it's one thing to
48:20say, Oh, the retail price is $12,000.
48:23But when you go to the dealership down the block here and then you're like,
48:27Oh, it's $500 for this.
48:28And like, you're out the door for 14,000 bucks on a bike.
48:31You're going to go hammer throw down a mountain.
48:35It's just, uh, well, I think that the, the motorcycle manufacturers of
48:40Europe are marketing to the more, to the top 10% of earners, they are not
48:47trying to make a mass market middleweight.
48:52They want to make something that's very nice for people who want something
48:56that is very nice and they can afford it.
49:00Yeah.
49:01600 sport bikes became a commodity, right?
49:03They became, and they were, if not affordable, affordable enough, hard to
49:11insure it at some points for some of those younger folks who would be
49:15interested in them, that was one of the big barriers was cost of insurance.
49:19But they did become sort of, uh, disposable, you know, you didn't, it
49:25wasn't as, I mean, it's not that you didn't love it, but the, the difference
49:28between buying a V4 Ducati and an inline, like a GSXR 1000, it's like a, it's a
49:39different mindset, even testing that, you know, you're like, uh, like I know I can
49:44get another GSXR 1000, like if you buy that bike, you know, there's a zillion
49:50parts for it, if you cartwheel it, you're going to pull it back.
49:54What's salvageable, fix it, get it back on the road.
49:57You might have a worse feeling about that if you did that to your $46,000
50:03Ducati or whatever it is, or your limited production, you know, KTM sport bike.
50:10Well, this is, this is just how society is changing at the moment.
50:16Uh, a few years ago, uh, horse feed and baled hay went out of sight for the
50:26pickup truck people who used to be in the majority at horse shows.
50:31My wife has horses, you see, and a lot of people just had to, had to get out of it.
50:40They couldn't buy that hay.
50:42They couldn't buy all that feed in those vet bills and, and all
50:48the horseshoeing and so forth.
50:51It used to be affordable.
50:52Well, what's happened is that activity has moved up the pyramid of, of income.
50:59And we, of course we deplore it.
51:03We want everyone to have a good time, but it's getting difficult.
51:08I don't know.
51:09My observation of horses, uh, was, was locked in fairly early.
51:13Uh, I worked on British cars and motorcycles my whole life.
51:16That's kind of been my passion in the background outside of, you know,
51:20professional riding and et cetera.
51:23And I had a Triumph TR six car and it was like really being a pain in the ass
51:27and I'm trying to keep it on the road.
51:30I had no money.
51:31It was two cars welded together.
51:33You know, the transmission was smoked.
51:35When I took the engine apart, the bearings were worn to the Babbitt's.
51:39It was just really in poor shape and I was limping it along and I was like
51:43driving, uh, through this area of, of horses near where my parents lived,
51:48where I was living and I saw horses and I thought, yeah, we should all ride horses.
51:54You know, like they're just, they take care of themselves.
51:56And, but in fact they don't, cause I was driving past, I was driving past
52:00and a veterinarian had his arm buried in a horse's tail end up through the
52:06shoulder and I'm driving by and I look and it, it seems impossible.
52:11Like what's going on here.
52:12I can't even process it cause I've never seen it.
52:15And the vet is just pulling his arm out of the horse's ass.
52:18And I'm just like, I'll stick to this car.
52:21I'm going to, I'm a, I'm a car and motorcycle guy.
52:24Yep.
52:25Fellas that here we come.
52:26Yeah.
52:26Nevermind sentient brain, right.
52:30Trying to ride something with a brain.
52:31Oh, but has an opinion.
52:33It seems to have, there's a big divide between people who want that relationship
52:37with the brain on and riding the horse and fear that and people who don't.
52:41And, uh, yeah, I'm a, I'm a don't so.
52:47Well, we've wandered off yet again, but, um, I think it's a good time to,
52:54uh, wind this one down.
52:56KTM has made a massive change from quirky bike maker and a boss man mortgaging his
53:03house to buy a couple of box fans in the United States and, and look at them now.
53:08And then what's ahead.
53:10How long till we see an orange podium in MotoGP?
53:14Well, we'll, you know, I, I can't, I can't wait for Ducati.
53:19Like you could really have a Ducati versus KTM battle just the way it
53:22was Honda and Yamaha.
53:24Yeah, good.
53:25Do so.
53:26And they, they've shown tremendous strength and won a few races, but so far,
53:33uh, KTM and, and Aprilia have not put together that, uh, steady, uh, top
53:42performance on all racetracks in all conditions, and it's not, not easy to
53:46get, not easy to achieve that position, but they haven't given up.
53:52Yeah.
53:52So I can only conclude that they are planning to get there.
53:58Yeah.
53:59Well, yeah, I don't know.
54:03A couple of things occurred to me.
54:05I know we're winding down, but my, I was thinking about my Yamaha WR250.
54:11It's a Dino's about 25, 26 from the factory with all the emission stuff on it.
54:19Uh, it holds about 1.4 liters of oil.
54:22So it makes about 20, 26 horsepower and holds 1.4 liters of oil.
54:27And, uh, we did an oil change on a KTM 500 some years ago.
54:31And I observed that it had less than one liter of oil and
54:35made something like 45 horsepower.
54:38And I thought completely different ethic at work here.
54:42We are, we are really pushing, pushing our limits, uh, in a different way.
54:47It's a race motor and you see that with the, you know, the official
54:51crankshaft interval change on a 350 XC or 500 is something like 135 hours,
54:57which at 30 miles an hour is probably, uh, 4,000 miles.
55:01And, you know, if you're, if you're not racing the bike, you can probably, you
55:05know, extend that a little bit longer, but, uh, it's the special stuff it's
55:10going after that market for the, for that person who really just wants an
55:15uncompromisingly high performance thing.
55:18WR 250 is not an uncompromisingly high performance thing, but I'm more
55:23likely to run my WR in sixth gear on the 15 at 65 miles an hour for 12
55:30hours or whatever that I would on a KTM.
55:34Cause it's not what it's made for.
55:35It's it'd be like using fine scotch as paint thinners.
55:38Uh, cook Nelson once said cook Nelson was the editor of cycle
55:44magazine once Kevin Cameron's boss.
55:47Wasn't he though?
55:48Yes, he really was.
55:50He would load up, uh, the weeks of the month's cover bike in his van and set
55:57off for, uh, places where he could get that wonderful early, early morning.
56:03Uh, diffused lighting.
56:05And he would come back with the cover photo and he was sure of himself.
56:15As all who have come in contact with him.
56:17Well, no.
56:19Well, thanks for listening to everybody.
56:22We will catch you next time.
56:23Jump down in the comments.
56:24I appreciate, uh, appreciate the comments.
56:27It's always a good time to have people telling me I'm not mentally
56:29qualified to talk to Kevin, which again, I will say who is, we had a fellow
56:34who was obsessed with my hat and a recent episode and I, what I really
56:40appreciate is I was complaining in, in, um, I think it was the BMW episode.
56:46Uh, and it was very cool that, that you were just talking to Udo Gito, but I
56:50was complaining about hardware, getting hardware, and I've had a bunch of
56:53people pop into the comments and say like, Oh, what you need are NAS washers.
56:59And they're right.
57:00They're like these mil spec washers that have tighter dimensions and they're
57:04flatter and you can, and they're tighter to the head of the bolt.
57:07So they actually just sit under the bolt rather than this big, like, Oh,
57:11this is an eight millimeter and a five sixteenths just sticking under there.
57:15It's a, it was very cool.
57:16There were two, two folks who went in and another guy was like, no, get
57:19shim washers cause they're very precise.
57:22And, uh, yeah, so there's, it's great.
57:25We have a, a great audience with a lot of brains and then other
57:28guys who don't want my sticker.
57:30He's like, take the sticker of your hat off and don't touch your hat.
57:33He says, Oh boy.
57:38I heard you internet.
57:40Yeah.
57:41We'll catch you next time.
57:42Thank you.