KTM Brand History
KTM was founded in 1934 by Hans Trunkenpolz and was initially known
as Kraftfahrzeuge Trunkenpolz. Because the company was actually a
metalworking shop and sales were pretty low, the owners decided to start
manufacturing motorcycles. Two years later, in 1953, an Austrian
businessman named Ernst Kronreif bought a large share of the company
which was the renamed to Kronreif & Trunkenpolz Mattighofen (KTM).In the first year of existence, they had only 20 employees and they were producing approximately three bikes per day, including the 98cc R100, a project which began in 1951. KTM first participated in motorsports events in 1953 in the 5th Gaisberg competition in which it won the first three places.
One year later, KTM celebrated the delivery of their 1000th motorcycle and, during the same year, it won the Austrian 125 national championship. Two years later, in 1956, KTM participated in the International Six Days race for the first time and Egon Dornauer won the gold.
In 1959, the KTM engineer Ludwig Apfelbeck developed a new racing motorcycle which Erwin Lechner uses to win multiple offroad competitions. Although the things were going pretty good for the company, KTM starts manufacturing bicycles in 1964.
Two years later, KTM started the production of the crosscountry Penton Six Days, a motorcycle which was meant to be exported to the USA. The same year marks the winning of the Austrian national championship by Manfred Klerr using the new 250cc Motorcross bike.
