VOL. 54 ISSUE 46 NOVEMBER 21, 2017 P71
FILLING
THE GAP
Last week at EICMA, KTM unveiled the new
790 Duke but a few weeks before that our European
Road Test Editor Alan Cathcart got a chance to take
a spin on one not far from its birthplace in Austria.
Officially a prototype, the bike Alan rode will be
very similar to the one you'll see on the showroom
floor in the not-so-distant future
BY ALAN CATHCART/PHOTOGRAPHY BY HEIKO MANDL
K
TM is Europe's largest motorcycle manufacturer, with
203,423 bikes sold under its KTM and Husqvarna
brand labels in 2016. But until now, the only multi-
cylinder motorcycles the Austrian company has made have
all been 75º V-twins based on the LC8 engine designed in-
house powering the 950R works racer with which Fabrizio
Meoni won the 2002 Paris-Dakar Rally. This duly reached
production the following year in the 950 Adventure, and
various derivatives of it, up to and including the mega-motor
powering the current 1290 Super Duke, have all been
based on that same V-twin platform. As such, over the past
15 years the 75º V-twin format has essentially fueled KTM's
growth to be Europe's number-one on-road, to go alongside
its undisputed world crown as the king of the off-road sec-
tor, gained by its Ready to Race single-cylinder products.
