KTM X-Bow | PH Auction Block

Need a new summer sports car for the sunshine? Do we have just the vehicle

By Matt Bird / Sunday, 15 June 2025 / Loading comments

There’s never a great time, seemingly, to bring a new stripped-out sports car to market. By their very nature they are occasional playthings that aren’t very suitable for anything but having enormous fun; they can’t really be used every day, they definitely don’t like long journeys and their track-focused hardware makes them expensive. They require commitment.

Given the wider economic downturn, 2008 really wasn’t the time to launch a new car without a roof, but with a carbon tub and pushrod suspension. Just as the world was about to implode and every non-essential cut back on, KTM launched one of the least practical cars ever to have existed. The X-Bow was a wonderful toy, combining the Austrian company's expertise on two wheels with Audi mechanicals, but toys were not what anyone was going to buy in the late '00s. Well, certainly not as many people as would have been hoped for.

The X-Bow’s task, in Britain at least, was made all the more challenging by the fact that stripped-out sports cars is an automotive niche that this country excels at. Back then buyers could get the supercharged, Toyota-engined Elises and Exiges, a 9,000rpm Caterham R500 still existed, and the Ariel Atom was improving by the year. With that sort of homegrown talent available, the KTM would have had a tough time making an impact even in more favourable economic climes. With the world as it was back then, though, numbers were only ever going to be tiny. On 21 pages of HowManyLeft data for KTM, the X-Bow doesn’t exist.

So let’s be grateful that a few took the plunge, as it means cars like this incredible X-Bow exist to be auctioned a decade and a half later. (Let’s not forget, either, that KTM continued with four wheels, creating the amazing X-Bow GT XR.) As is so often the case, cars that looked pretty crazy not so long ago now seem absolutely out of this world. In KTM’s trademark Adrenaline Orange, with colour-matched wheels and what honestly look like teeth in the grille, the X-Bow is really like nothing else. Even by the standards of the genre, it’s totally bonkers. In the best way.

X-Bow power came from a 2.0-litre turbo four, originally with 240hp and later with 300hp - this one has the upgrade. Which ought to be plenty of power with less than 800kg, especially with the added interaction of a short-throw six-speed manual. This one also benefits from all the available factory carbon, four-point harnesses and two sets of tyres. It has been with its current keeper for a decade, which is a good sign - they’ll know absolutely everything about it. During that time it’s been used for a few hundred (presumably exhilarating) miles a year, so the current tally remains less than 12k. There’s a good amount of history to support the mileage, and a 2.0-litre four from the VW empire must surely be easier to maintain than a more exotic powertrain.

Just as when new, of course, the X-Bow won’t make a great deal of sense for a lot of journeys. But for those that it does suit, with the sun shining and no real destination in mind, it promises to be epic fun. Which is what driving should be all about. Bidding starts on Wednesday.

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