KTM Says Its New Superbike is Coming, But Will We Ever Actually See It?

Honestly, it's a coin toss at this point.

By: Jonathon Klein

Jan 31, 2025 at 7:05am ET

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KTM is a mess. Despite insolvency proceedings supposedly going well—according to KTM, I'll add—the company's CEO and Co-CEO have switched titles for some reason, production is still not happening, and having more than a year's worth of unsold motorcycles sitting on lots, there are enough rumors of the brand's demise to fill a large bathtub.

MotoGP is, supposedly, still going on. But if the brand itself, or the team, doesn't find a new patron, it too is dead by their own admission. And the roll-out of some of its most successful models has been, well, a complete and utter cluster. I'm looking at you, 390s.

So color me skeptical when I read the letter that KTM corporate sent out to its North American dealerships talking about the timeline for when they'd get a physical motorcycle of the hottest KTM in recent memory, i.e. the upcoming 990 RC R superbike. While KTM states the 990 RC R will begin production in Q4 of 2025, that's a long way out for a company that's this up a creek.

I'm not sure that we'll ever actually see this motorcycle...

In the letter sent to dealerships, KTM states, "RESUMPTION OF PRODUCTION: AVAILABILITY OF NEW MODELS Production at our facility in Mattighofen is currently scheduled to resume on March 17. Priority will be given to models for which most of the required components have already been secured. The new 990 RC R and 1390 Super Adventure models shown at EICMA are expected to go into series production starting in Q4 2025." Emphasis mine.

And I wanted to emphasize that portion as the term "expected" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

I mean, first and foremost, KTM has a year's worth of bikes just sitting across the globe. That inventory isn't going anywhere until it starts slashing prices. Second, KTM states that it's prioritizing the bikes it already has parts for, meaning that the 990 RC R's components haven't even been bought yet. Or, at the very least, KTM doesn't have a full bike's worth of parts, nor the funds to purchase said parts. That all paints a picture of this motorcycle likely not happening unless a truly staggering amount of money is injected into the failing company.

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KTM even admits this with the term "expected," as it allows KTM to either cancel the bike or move production further out. Nothing is concrete, nothing is certain. And when you're $2.5 billion in debt to your creditors, I don't blame them for using the gray area that is "expected", nor would blame anyone for wondering what I've just put to paper here.

What is funny, however, is that KTM goes on to state that its 390-powered motorcycles won't be affected by the production pauses as they're not actually KTMs, but built by Bajaj. Score one for the Indians, the same folks who are likely to buy the rest of the brand. At least, that's where my money is.