At a time when motorcycle manufacturers are facing mixed fortunes – record sales at Honda and Royal Enfield, while beleaguered Harley-Davidson has seen its Chairman Jochen Zeiz resign – comes good news from KTM and Buell.

KTM, which was facing bankruptcy, has been saved by a 600 million euro investment from its manufacturing partner Bajaj Auto, which holds a 49.9% stake in the company. This comes on top of 200 million euro the Indian giant had invested in KTM in March 2025.

The Austrian firm had a 23rd May deadline to fulfil its legal obligations and pay 30% of what it owes to creditors – failure to do so would have put its three subsidiaries into liquidation. But Bajaj’s intervention came in the nick of time, just days ahead of the May deadline.

Meanwhile, the reborn Buell brand is returning to the UK for the first time in 15 years. Buell, then a subsidiary of Harley-Davidson, closed down in 2009, but founder Erik Buell started again in the bike business with Erik Buell Racing. This was later bought by Liquid Asset Partners (LAP) which also bought the Buell name back from H-D and revitalised the business. The new UK importer is Rainbow Moto & Re-Charge Café, based in Ashburton, Devon. It was expecting its first delivery of the Hammerhead superbike and 119SX super-naked in late May, with a launch weekend on 7th-8th June.

At the BMF, Chair Jim Freeman said: “Good to see that both niche brands are reappearing. The big question for me is the future of Livewire, no company can sustain that level of loss for long, I’ve seen a figure of $ 600,000 on every bike they sold in the 1st quarter of this year, all 30 odd.”

Written by Peter Henshaw

Top image courtesy of  Buell Motorcycles