Alcohol and cars do not go well together. We really, really hope this isn’t news to anyone. But it’s the billions made by beer that might have just given one of our favourite oddball sports cars, the KTM X-Bow, a new lease of life, if media reports are to be believed.
A few weeks ago, we heard that Austrian bike maker, KTM, was looking to sell off its sports car division as part of its efforts to shore itself up following its recent dalliance with bankruptcy. Now, according to Austrian outlet Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, a group of investors have stepped in to buy the rights to the X-Bow, with the consortium reportedly led by members of Belgium’s De Mevius family.
KTM X-Bow – side
They’ve made their fortune as shareholders in InBev, an enormous brewing company that became even larger in 2008 with its merger with Anheuser-Busch. The resulting company, AB InBev, is the biggest of its kind in the world, with brands including Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois under its ownership.
That said, buying into a sports car maker wouldn’t be a complete left turn for the family – one of its members, Gregoire De Mevius, competed in the WRC in the 1990s, and his son Guillaume currently races in rally raid events.
KTM X-Bow – rear
Per German outlet Auto Motor und Sport, the new owners, which include other, currently unnamed investors, plan to keep the KTM X-Bow name alive, licensing it from the bike maker. It’ll also reportedly expand its offerings in the ‘road-legal super sports car’ segment, suggesting more cars in the vein of the wild X-Bow GT-XR, and branch out into off-road vehicles. Did somebody say Ariel Nomad competitor?
For now, all of this is just reports, with nothing finalised in writing yet, but we’ll be keeping an eye on this story to see if the X-Bow does in fact live on thanks to beer money.
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