 In the first episode, we walked through the first 50 years of KTM's history. Nowadays, it is clear that the company is proud of this path and heritage, which contributed a lot to its success. That's why when KTM learned about this series, they decided to jump in and help us tell the story by sharing their point of view on some of the most important moments of the brand. In this video, we chat with Hene Esterbauer, the Managing Director of the KTM Motor Hall. Inaugurated in 2019, the Motor Hall is a museum to revive KTM's history and a place to experience the brand. You can come to Matic Hovenment to the KTM Motor Hall and have a look into the world of KTM, because we can have a look into the process of bike design. From the first drawing to the final clay model, you can have a complete experience of how this process is going on. We have the bikes of 74, the designs to the actual bikes. You can see the evolution of the designs of KTM, of the logos, of the colors, of the product itself. For sure, we have three floors in our exhibition. The first one is all about technique, all about product, product evolution. You can have a better experience in our frames, in our suspension, in our engines. Then on the second floor, there are the bikes. So we have in this floor more than 70 bikes from our history and our past. So beginning from the Maki, the Pony or the Comet to the actual model range. And our highlight floor is for sure the third floor. There we have 28 heroes. Let's call it like this. And there is a 12 minute highlight movie with a really good 360 degree experience. So besides that, we have a KTM shop. We have here in the background the living workshop. There we have our colleague, Shiki. It's really well known in the company and he's preparing the bikes here in the background. This is the bike of Musea from 74. And we bring it from the early stage to the final one and to bring it to the exhibition. And then we have an innovation lab for children. We want to bring the design process a little bit closer to our kids and to our new future employees and hopefully customers in this case. Yeah, the motor is for sure the ultimate KTM experience. So let's start with a quick recap. In the 60s, KTM was becoming mainstream around the world, mainly due to the popularity of three distinct models. The Maki, the Pony and the Comet, which really helped KTM to become a global brand. The Maki for sure was a world premiere for us for KTM in 57, because it was the first moped scooter where directly came from KTM. We made the own engine from ourselves and yeah, that was a quite big start at the beginning of the KTM history. And the same was with the Pony. That was the kickoff to be really relevant on a global market, because we export the bikes in 22 countries and yeah, that was for sure one big milestone for us. And the KTM Comet as well was for sure relevant on the global market as well, because there were a lot of different models in the Netherlands. There were different than in Austria, was really market related and yeah, with different colors, different models and yeah, we are quite happy because they are relevant at this time as well. So a few years later, one individual managed to shake things up at KTM. John Panton, a racer from the US, captured the attention of KTM and managed to convince the brand to produce a more off-road oriented bike. The cooperation with John Panton was really unique and important for us, because that was really the kickoff to go off-road with the bikes. It was 1969. John Panton and KTM made a cooperation that we are trying to go in off-road competitive races and yeah, there were races like the six days we have won and yeah, John Panton for sure was the basis for future titles for us, because this was the start for the off-road segment. And I was quite happy because the opening of the KTM Autohold John was here in Maticoven. He is I think 90 years now. He got a big birthday by last year and yeah, he was there and yeah, saw his bike in our exhibition and that was for us for sure one big experience, because this man is important for us in our history. This partnership with John Panton was so successful that they had to consider the missing piece of the puzzle, the engine. And so KTM decided to fully develop their bikes in-house. Yeah, to be relevant in off-road competitions you have to be to have a standalone segment and not to bring in own or different engines from roadtops or socks where we had in the past. Yeah, 1971 it was the start of a landmark in our part. It was the start of the DGS engines and for sure the basis for future world championship titles, because a few years later we won the first world championship title with Museev and yeah, that was our engine just three years later. So that was a quite short time and but we made it and we are quite happy to have our own or to have our own engines for sure. In the middle of the 80s, business was good for the Austrian brand, but Japanese manufacturers such as Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki had just entered international motorcycle market and were spreading like wildfire. The overnight success of the Japanese motorcycle brands, leveraged by more competitive prices and higher reliability, made KTM scooter and moped sales drop like a stone, which led to a production hiatus in 1988. However, the shock with the Japanese brands didn't only bring obstacles to KTM, it also gave the opportunity to set a new course on the brand's goals. Yes, to have competition is always good and improvement. So yeah, we tried in this case as well our best, we focused on our core values, we focused on the ready-to-race claim on the early stages well and yeah, we tried to do our best to be competitive, to be better than other brands and yeah that was for sure in our team upfront beginning there. As if the situation wasn't challenging enough for the brand, Erich Trunkenport, CEO at the time, passed away and there was no other Trunkenport successor in line. In 1989, the Austrian politician Josef Tauss took over 51% of the company and in three years, the company halved the turnover and doubled the debt, falling into bankruptcy. By 1991, the control of KTM was split across numerous creditor banks. In 1992, KTM was split into four separate entities. KTM Farad GmbH, which produced bicycles, KTM Kühle GmbH, which produced automotive radiators, KTM Werzeigbau GmbH, which produced tools, and the Motorcycle Division, KTM Sport Motorcycle GmbH, the core of KTM's earliest successes. In the same year, a joint venture between cross-holding, what is known today as Pierre Remobility and other investors, took over KTM Sport Motorcycle GmbH, which regained its footing, steadily increasing their production and turnover. Although nowadays we also see KTM Bicycles, the two brands are from two completely different companies. In the history of KTM, for sure one of the most important milestones that Mr. Pira made a new structure of KTM with the new wording KTM Sport Motorcycle. And from this time on, the product development changed completely. Together with Gerald Kiska, there were new models on the market, we got the new brand image, we got the color orange the first time here, and that was for sure the basis of the actual time now. They were able to invest more in production and also in brand new R&D facilities, leading to more innovative products. It did not take long for KTM to resume their motor sports activities and show the market they should be taken seriously again. In 1993 KTM decided to go all in in the rally scene and won the Atlas Rally in five different categories. To do rallies is especially the Dakar is for us for sure one of the the biggest involvement in motorsports because the yeah these events are one of the biggest in motorsports worldwide with the big mythen itself so that was for us clear that that we have to be there and to be relevant on the market as I already mentioned is that you have to be on every motorsports competition represented and that was for sure a time that we took to our first victory of Ritimione 2001 and then yeah the success way started. One year later the Duke Sport motorcycle was unveiled to the public. It was KTM's first street bike with a big bore four stroke single cylinder liquid cooled engine. It was introduced and became one of the brand's most iconic bikes both for its performance and exclusivity since in the beginning not many were produced each year. Yes the idea was that we bring our offered bikes on the street and so we had a really good engine and or we have so we have the LC4 engine and that's yeah came into the and to the Duke frame or into the Duke model and therefore we started a new milestone in our history because the Duke one or two are such big bikes and types of models and that's that we're quite happy about it so and the Duke bikes are now the basis for for actual model range so we have the Super Duke now we have all kind of Dukes in every segment and every CC category and yeah that was for sure 94 one big year for us and the Duke. In 1995 KTM started the acquiring spree by purchasing Sweden's Usseberg AB and taking over white power suspensions which later became WP suspensions. The following years KTM debuted their signature orange color library and introduced the adventure high performance bikes which turned out to be a success. KTM was becoming a global phenomenon and was causing quite a stir namely in the racing world starting to become the team to beat or to join. Don't miss the next episode.