KTM has been the story of the motorcycling industry for the last 12 months. Harley's corporate coup was a close second, but nothing can beat the insanity and constant chaos going on at the Austrian manufacturer. There's so much Succession here, I'd be surprised if the show didn't adopt aspects of KTM's insolvency for a future season.
But the future looks, theoretically, brighter than it has in recent months. Yet, we've said this all before.
What I'm talking about is the fact that KTM has announced that it will resume production this July, and that was confirmed to RideApart by the brand's insolvency managers, AKV. This comes after production, which had been paused since late last year, began again in late March, only to be halted after a few short weeks, and only a few thousand motorcycles built.
This batch, however, didn't include KTM's very popular 390 motorcycles as those are built in India by the brand's literal savior, Bajaj, which just last week rescued the motorcycling giant from basically going under. But again, things are looking brighter.
After Bajaj's infusion of cash, and taking control of the company, I reached out to ask whether said money would be able to meet KTM's original planned manufacturing resumption date of late July, to which AKV responded with, "Production is scheduled to resume in July."
That's pretty cut and dry, ain't it?
Now, as much as that's good news, and AKV is one to be trusted more than most other parties within this whole fiasco, there are some issues that Bajaj will have to figure out in order to begin production. Namely, if its name, its cash, and its promises can convince KTM's suppliers, which it racked up billions of dollars in debt with, that they should start sending parts over to Mattighofen again. Because that's, supposedly, what stopped production last time: i.e., not enough parts to continue producing new motorcycles as suppliers weren't too keen on KTM's management potentially stiffing them again.
Yet, if there's some solace to be taken here, it's that Bajaj's KTMs weren't affected by either production pause. In fact, they were the only KTMs to be produced since November. RideApart even confirmed that at the time when KTM began production again, but wouldn't say which bikes Mattighofen was building. So maybe with this new controlling stake and ownership, KTM will finally be righted?
At least one can hope.
