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KTM 790 Duke concept on show at Milan

On the face of it, you could argue that KTM probably doesn’t need another capacity section in its road bike offerings. In adventure, roadster or sportbike form, you can choose from 125, 200, 250, 390, 690, 1050 or 1290 form. Sounds like a pretty fair spread? Well yes and no. All the sub-1050 motors are singles, and while that’s a venerable engine layout, with many advantages, it’s also got several hefty downsides too – vibes, ultimate power output, long-term reliability at the performance limits. And the big V-twin lump couldn’t easily be made much smaller than the 1050 unit without compromising itself with the size and mass of its basic layout.

So, to keep up the firm’s growth, it needs a new engine to fit between the singles and the big Vees. That engine is a middleweight parallel twin and it’s been telegraphed for a while now, even making it into the firm’s annual report – but here it is on show, officially. This prototype 790 Duke concept features the new design – dubbed the LC8c – at the heart of a fairly conventional (for KTM) roadster layout.

The small ‘c’ in the name stands for compact, and the 800cc (ish) lump is indeed commendably small in stature. There’s a lot crammed in there mind – and the impressively fat headers point to a strong peak power output, in this form anyway. The launch blurb speaks of extensive electronics, as we’d expect, plus next-generation sensors and connectivity.

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The rest of the concept has just enough mad stuff to impress – the silencer is bonkers, and the headlight and tank setup doesn’t quite look like the sort of thing that will end up in production form unchanged.

Of course, when the LC8c makes it onto the road, it will come in a massive range of options – adventure bike, naked, roadster, sportsbike (we hope!) across KTM’s brands (Husqvarna and Husaberg). This engine has a lot riding on it – the money spent on it will need to be justified to the accountants, and the only way to do that is to offer it in a wide range of bikes.

What is a little worrying is the vagueness of the launch. There are no specs to speak of, and that points to the 790 range being a way off still – probably a 2018 appearance rather than 2017. That’s later than we all thought, and might suggest the development of the engine is taking a bit longer than expected.

Still, we’ve got faith that the Austrian nutters will get the 790 right – they’ve got some pretty good credentials in this area…

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