Looking Back: Remember When KTM Made Quads?

Seems like a dream now.

The ATV industry is weird. Back when it gained mainstream in the 1980s, racing motocross was a major attraction. Companies like Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki all manufactured high performance 2-stroke race equipment and offered sponsorship and contingency programs that rivaled the best in 2-wheel and snowmobile sectors.

Then lawsuits and bans choked the industry out, and, for a very long time after, ATV racers had no choice but to buy antiquated Honda 250R chassis and heavily modify them before getting out on the track.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a second racing revolution began in the early 2000s. This time it was centered on the rapidly popular 450cc 4-stroke performance engine options finding their way into our two-wheeled cousins.

And seemingly overnight, Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki had stock 450cc, liquid cooled, manual clutch 4-stroke race equipment on dealership floors. Factory sponsorship and contingency packages were back. It was glorious.

The amazing thing is, 450cc race quad development didn’t stop with the “big four”: Just about every brand you could fathom got on board this time: Polaris, Can-Am, Hyosung, Arctic Cat, United Motors and KTM.

In the event that you need a refresher, the story doesn’t end much better than it did the first time around. Government agencies came down heaviest on the ATV industry, importing the machines into the country became a hassle and then the economy took a dive in 2008. What resulted is the 450cc race ATV went extinct nearly as quickly as it had arrived (exception: Yamaha).

However, this isn’t an article about the highs and lows of the ATV industry’s relationship with racing, this is a look back at a rare quartet of gorgeous orange machines that came to us from Austria in that brief moment of performance glory.

KTM produced only four models between model years 2008 and 2010, aiming at the very highest segment of the sport market: 450XC, 450SX and 525XC and 505SX.

The XCs were slightly more woods-racer oriented, opting for KTM’s single-overhead cam engines while the SXs were built for tighter stadium-style tracks thanks to dual-overhead cams. Aside from that, they were all liquid-cooled, four-valve, four-stroke race engines.

Cooler still, the 450 and 525 top ends were interchangeable.

Other perks of KTM ownership were high-quality fully adjustable Ohlins shocks with dual-rate springs, adjustable width rear axles and A-Arms, a stock kill switch, large fuel tank, Magura hydraulic clutch and brakes, chromoly frame, Pro Taper handlebars and even steel braided cables. In short – these machines were built to be raced out of the box.

These days spotting a KTM ATV is a rarity indeed. Once in a great while you might spot on a classified site or in the pits of a racetrack. We never let the opportunity to examine one of these finely engineered pieces of European performance up close pass us by, even if no one on staff has actually had the pleasure of owning one.

We did however test the 525XC in 2012 here.

Bonus Fact

Ever wonder what prompted KTM to take the plunge into the ATV sector in the first place? The answer may surprise you. American powerhouse Polaris not only held stock in KTM, they also worked out an exclusive agreement to have the Austrian firm develop and provide the engines for Polaris’s own Outlaw race machines (450 and 525). Once KTM had all of the tooling and production up and running, it was a very natural transition for them to produce their own quads in-house as well.

As a result, there was a time when you could snag the identical 450 and 525 XC engine in either a KTM or Polaris-branded ATV (many of the other specs, such as the suspension (Fox Shox for Polaris) and frame material (aluminum for Polaris) were different between the brands, however).

We tested the Polaris Outlaw 450MXR back in 2010, here.