KTM X-BOW: The high-performance sports car racing into the future

“KTM X-BOW has always had ready to race in the DNA”

In this episode of Third Angle, we go behind the scenes at KTM, an Austrian manufacturer at the forefront of racing excellence. Their X-BOW series is a sports car which contains all of the innovation and design features of a modern racing car.

Join us as we learn all about the X-BOW, with its iconic jet fighter canopy, five-cylinder engine, removable steering wheel and carbon fibre monocoque. The cars are manufactured in Austria by hand, with only 100 cars made per year - plus they are customisable, with the owner able to choose the colour and stitching to provide the ultimate unique product. For safety and sustainability, carbon fibre is used. This not only protects the driver from potential impact, and allows the car to weigh less and focus on lightweight technology.

Find out more about KTM X-BOW here.

Find out more about Windchill here.

Your host is Paul Haimes from industrial software company PTC.

Episodes are released bi-weekly. Follow us on LinkedIn and X for updates.

This is an 18Sixty production for PTC. Executive producer is Jacqui Cook. Sound design and editing by Rema Mukena. Location recording by Martha Owen. And music by Rowan Bishop.

Transcript

Welcome to Third Angle, where innovation meets racing excellence.

I'm your host, Paul Hames, from industrial software company PTC. In this podcast, we share the moments where digital transforms physical and meet the brilliant minds behind some of the most innovative products around the world, each powered by PTC technology. Today, our journey takes us to KTM's Crossbow Center in the heart of Austria, Austria.

A brand synonymous with innovation in motorsports. Known for their motorcycles and high performance sports cars, KTM has consistently pushed the boundaries of design and engineering. At the heart of this innovation is the KTM Crossbow, a car that combines advanced technology with a bold, aggressive design, setting new standards in the racing world.

From the original 2008 Crossbow to the latest GTX R model, KTM's commitment to excellence is evident in every detail. Our producer Aaron Olseker had the opportunity to visit this remarkable facility and was guided by Laura Krehamer. Managing director at KTM and a passionate racer herself. 

So here we are in a small part of beautiful Austria in the crossbow center where a lot of the crossbow brand magic happens actually.

 we have a service center here where we help people,  to repair damaged cars, service cars, have the racing team here, a lot of activities, but you know what? Take a step in and I'll show you around.

So entering the showroom, it's the heart of our center where we display many of the cars we have.  I've been always passionate about cars, racing cars especially. I've entered the company already, wow, many years ago I think. seven, eight years ago. I still race for the company and I really enjoy what I'm able to do here.

We have the 2008 original crossbow where history starts for the brand. Actually, we have the newest model to the right side, the GTXR, which has been released last year. The Open Top Crossbow, the Crossbow R, was developed very quickly and was then introduced at the Automobilesalon in Genf, where the reputation was extremely positive.

And then Mr. Pirra, Mr. Trunkenboltz, the board of KTM, decided to build this car in a series, and there was a main plant installed in Graz.

It's produced by hand. Which is important. It's more manufacturing than a production, a serious production. So there's a small, nice team building the cars one by one, in fact. And then, you know, everything just. Took grip and went on and new, new models were installed. And 2016, we then established a GT4 car, the KTM Crossroad GT4, which was a real racing car, racing car only with the canopy, you know, on the car, on the, you can see, if you look out of the office here, you can see the car over there, which has the canopy, which is like a jet fighter.

Canopy,  which is really unique for the car. And,  then in fact, a few years later, we thought, okay, we need a new engine. We need more power. We changed to the five cylinder engine installed or established the GTX GT2 race cars. Yeah. And from then on, we went on and,  yeah, introduced the GTX R last year.

KTM Crossbow has always. ready to race in the DNA. So that has been the main focus, which brought us to a very different approach to things, actually. I think that's the biggest difference for us. You can see all the colors there,  the stitching, the logos, everything, obviously different types of rims, which hang on the wall there.

And yes, everything to make a unique car. And anyway, unique product. So individualization has nearly no limits for our brand.  we produce around, yeah, I would say a hundred cars a year maximum. And as you can see there really,  you can individualize. The brake calipers in every color you want.  you can,  choose your stitching in every color you want.

 we have a lot of color frogs here, like we call them very nicely, which,  should give the customer an idea how The color he chooses will look on his car. Yeah, we have a lot of possibilities and people like to use them. Our showroom is basically open the whole day. We have many people walking here through the cars on the right side, up the podi  having a look because it's cars that you can see very rarely on the street as we've just released it.

The new model for the street, but you can see them on most racetracks on the world.

So if you look at the inside, we have a A seat which is FIA homologated which secures extra safety. Basically the whole car is out of monocoque as well as you can see up there the whole monocoque structure. So in the car we have a removable steering wheel which is really cool for the drivers. For the driving change you know you see there's very limited space in here with the seat we have Additional to the monocoque, the rollover cage, which is unique for race car like this.

Normally you have a monocoque or you have the rollover cage. We have both, which is really giving some extra safety. But obviously space is very limited. There's not a lot you can do as a driver to get in and out of the car. And if you have to be quick, it's good if you can remove the steering wheel.  On the steering wheel, we see the,  pedal shifts, which are there for the sequential gearbox, which makes shifting up and down very,  quick, which is needed in racing, obviously.

Then also what you can see are the safety nets here, which is needed in GT2 and which is mounted here just to make sure that the head of the driver is safe all the time and can't be removed from, from the inner. Of the car more or less.

If we're heading back a little bit of the car we come to the heart of the car the audi five cylinder Engine, which is just under the engine cover here If this is opened and it's everything carbon again, obviously You can just have a straight look Into the heart of the car with the five cylinder big tank 120 liter tank We are driving a lot of long distance races where we need a lot of fuel obviously because race cars are using more fuel so you don't want to come and change or We re enter fuel into the car every few laps.

That's why we need a lot of fuel.

For the design, which is very unique, we work with Kiska. Kiska has been a long term partner of KTM, developing or designing the motorcycles, designing the first crossbows already. Kiska has always been brave in designing, you know, finding a ready to race shape, which is aggressive. But, street homologated, with curves and everything.

Unique from what we already know. Finding a good compromise between something unique, beautiful, which is in harmony, but aggressive and ready to race, is very difficult. And I think Kizker is really done Masterpiece in there because the crossbow really has a unique design, especially with the jet fighter canopy, which sets it apart from every other car.

If you open the canopy, then,  people are really. Yeah, surprised and often surprised about the whole feeling in the car. And yeah, I simply love it. Obviously with the car, you're always the underdog. We're racing against huge brands like Audi, Mercedes, Porsche, and everything. And KTM Crossbow is establishing its name in the racing world.

We're driving huge races, 24 hours of Nürburgring and,  yeah, 12 hours of Bathurst and everything. huge international races since many, many years. Already have won championships are leading championships right now, currently with the car. And somehow you're the underdog people very, or spectators. I'm very curious about the car because some of them have not seen it yet.

One thing which has always been unique with the car is we're working a lot with carbon fiber, obviously. Carbon fiber, carbon fiber is a mega material. It's flexible, it's very safe, it's, it's a very good material to work with, in fact. And this gives us the possibility to focus on lightweight technology.

So the cars, way, not more than 1130 kilos, which is nothing for road car, nothing, you know, and gives us safety. We have the monocoque technology, which is basically you, you know, formula one cars, right? You can imagine how the formula one car looks. And if there is a crash, which we don't like to see, but normally there is one.

which goes around the feet, which stays, you know, when all the wheels are off and everything, there's like a cocoon in where the driver sits. And that's the monocoque. That's the safest thing you can have in the car to protect the driver and we're working on a monocoque technology means that every car you see out there in the showroom has a monocoque technology improving the driver's safety in road cars and in racing cars.

Obviously at KTM we're always trying to push forward. Push forward, stay in time, Find new technologies, find new innovations, offer more, and,  We are planning some updates. We have announced the GT2 Evo, which will come in the next year, which will have some updates regarding obviously the outer skin, but mainly it's about making the car more drivable, more reliable,  stronger, more competitive, everything you need.

And yeah, I mean, obviously we're always working on update. Behind those closed doors over there where the R and D is sitting.  but I can't say too much about it. You know, I think as I mentioned. KTM Crossbow in the world of cars has always been the underdog. We're a small series manufacturer and we're producing about maximum 100 cars a year by hand with a lot of love, which,  obviously different budget than big manufacturers have, but obviously we have some, possibilities that we do because we're not as big as the others.

And I think to, or being able to be respected in the world as competitive and as fast living like racing or the car industry, this is something very special. And I think we have done huge steps in that market. People respect our product, we've proven our competitiveness, and I think that's what we want to do in the future as well.

That was Laura from KTM, and thanks to her we got an in depth look at what makes KTM's Expo Series so special, from their innovative use of carbon fiber, to their relentless pursuit of racing excellence. Now it's time to meet our expert, Mark Lobo from PTC. Automotive companies have been at the forefront of digital transformation as they race to deliver and define the future of mobility with software being involved in almost all functions of modern cars.

Mark, we know KTM Expo used PTC's Creo as its design tool, but they also use PTC's Windchill as its PLM solution. Can you give an overview of how Windchill helps automotive manufacturers? 

KTM is a really good example. So I'm glad we're talking about KTM, especially in the windshield context. So as you said, there's really a big challenge for automotive OEMs today, whether they're designing and manufacturing a high performance super sports car or a long haul truck.

And one of the key challenges is managing complexity. So if we think about complexity, it's everywhere in automotive. In terms of the vehicle itself, it's the mechanical, the hardware, with the electrical, the electronics, and as you rightly said, tons of more software that needs to come together as one product together.

The complexity might also be in terms of the product portfolio of vehicles for different markets across the world. And when you think inside the company itself, there's the complexity of all the design and manufacturing processes, of all of these things as they think about scaling globally and having plants that build and design these things across the globe.

So complexity is everywhere. Now to accelerate a product launch and really to be first to market, these companies must connect all the upstream and downstream stakeholders from design all the way to the shop flow. It's not easy. Now to achieve this, KTM and their suppliers needed to establish PLM, Product Lifecycle Management, and more particularly Windchill here as a new pillar of their enterprise IT system landscape.

So with Windchill, KTM is able to get to the market faster, improve quality and safety, bringing all those disciplines together that I described, while reducing cost and risk across all of their products, including the KTM Expo, which, which we heard about earlier. The end result is this realization of this fantastic vehicle called the X Bow.

So very cool. Thanks for having me on.

Thanks to our expert Mark for sharing their insights into the technology driving innovation. Laura for the fascinating tour of KTM's X Bow center, and special thanks to our producer Aaron for bringing us this exciting story from Austria. Please rate, review, and subscribe to our bi weekly Third Angle episodes wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow PTC on LinkedIn and X for future episodes.

Companies that make products the world relies on, rely on PTC.

This is an 18Sixty production for PTC. Executive producer is Jackie Cook. Sound design and editing by Remy McKenna. Location recording by Aaron Olsaker. And music by Rowan Bishop.