Monday, September 17, 2012

KTM X-Bow (aka KTM Crossbow)

KTM has been producing motorcycles since the year 1954, but they launched their first car in 2008 - the KTM X-Bow (pronounced "crossbow').

The X-Bow is an ultra-light sports car, legal for road use, which has a turbocharged four-cylinder Audi engine (a 2.0 litre). The original 2008 version has 237bhp with 310 newton meters of torque, enabling a 0-100km/h sprint in just under four seconds. While the top speed isn't phenomenally fast (217 km/h), this car is all about handling and grip - Jeremy Clarkson once compared the X-Bow to "driving on superglue".

By 2011, KTM tuned the Audi engine to produce even more power (300bhp, 400 newton meters of torque), and renamed this new version the X-Bow R model.

So not only is it fast, grippy, good-looking (imho), it is also quite popular: KTM originally only planned a production of 500 units per year, but the company has increased production to a whopping 1000 units. They even had to build a new plant (near Graz) to fulfill the demand! I'll have mine in orange, please ;)













No comments:

Post a Comment