GasGas, the iconic Spanish motorcycle brand, bought by the Pierer Mobility Group and KTM, is to enter MotoGP with the Tech3 team.
From 2023, Tech3 will become the GasGas Factory Racing Team, with Pol Espargaro confirmed as one of their riders. The team will compete with factory-backed KTM RC16s branded under the GasGas name.
Sam Sunderland can call himself a two-time Dakar Rally winner after today’s final stage of the iconic race.
The Brit finished third in Friday’s Stage 12 timed section, which was enough to clear him by almost four-minutes from his next competitor, Pablo Quintanilla.
The day marks a bit of history as well, as Sunderland’s result gives GasGas its first Dakar Rally, though the machine is largely a rebadged KTM 450 Rally motorcycle. For those who are unaware, GasGas became part of KTM’s business group in 2019.
The house of brands under KTM’s management had a very, very good year in 2021, with their parent company Pierer Mobility reporting a 23% increase in motorcycle sales over 2020’s dismal figures.
The preliminary report doesn’t break-out sales by each motorcycle brand (KTM, Husqvarna, & GasGas), but it does separate out the firm’s bicycle and e-bike figures, which have been used in the past to buoy the marketing team’s efforts.
As such, we can rest assured that today’s announcement and positive progress is real, and not the spin we were getting in 2020, which saw the Austrian outfit taking a first-time dip in sales results in the past decade.
The first of KTM’s 500cc lineup is expected to be ready by 2022. This isn’t exactly new information for those who have been following the space, but it is the first time that we have heard it from the horse’s mouth.
This is because KTM CEO Stefan Pierer sat down with journalist Sir Alan Cathcart, and discussed the new models (you can read his full interview on Motoring World) and several other items in an expansive interview.
While the MIC and the motorcycle industry at large tries to spin a narrative where motorcycle sales are thriving throughout the coronavirus pandemic, the cold and hard numbers don’t lie, and they paint a different story. Today is a continuation of that trend.
Case in point, we have the mid-year sales report from Pierer Mobility, the company behind the KTM, Husqvarna, and GasGas brands, and for the first six months of 2020, the Austrian group is touting only a modest (for the times) sales decline of 8% compared to last year.
That would be a decent and expected figure, considering the turbulent year with the coronavirus, if it wasn’t a complete fabrication and a contradiction to the company’s own reported sales numbers.
Episode 27 of the Brap Talk podcast is now out for your two-wheeled audio pleasure, and as always, it is packed with some interesting motorcycle discussions.
In this show, we catch up on lost time, as Jensen got the flu (go get your flu shot, right now), and was in bed for two weeks hoping that death would come and release him from his misery.
While that meant a delay in podcasting shows, the upside is that it means this episode has plenty to talk about!
Ever since Pierer Mobility (the holding company for KTM and Husqvarna) took control of GasGas, we have been wondering what was to come of the Spanish dirt bike brand.
But, thanks to the investor document that the Austrian brand published this week, we can see what is in store for GasGas in the near future, and it is certainly interesting.
Remember that day when KTM bought a struggling dirt bike brand? No, we’re not talking about Husqvarna again, because today Stefan Pierer and his team acquired 60% of the shares of Spanish dirt bike marque GasGas.
The acquisition is actually an interesting one between KTM and GasGas’s owner, Black Toro Capital, as it sees the Austrian conglomerate “partnering” with its Spanish counterpart, primarily on electric dirt bikes.
In case you missed the initial reports, those in the off-road world will be especially happy to hear that Spanish motorcycle maker Gas Gas has been saved from the deadpool. Infusing €13 million into the failing motorcycle brand, Torrot is our unlikely hero, the Spanish firm a producer of electric bicycles and urban mobile two-wheelers.
The cash infusion will come into Gas Gas over the next three years, with a focus on updating the company’s product lineup. This will include bringing Gas Gas back to the trials market in a big way, as well as developing new enduro models. Even electric models in the works.
This looks like the end of the road for motorcycle manufacturer Gas Gas, as the Spanish brand entered into liquidation today, after its bankruptcy proceedings failed to find the €30 million necessary to pay the company’s creditors.
The news is timely, as today interested parties in owning Erik Buell Racing (or parts of it) will be placing their bids on the similarly wayward company.
Back in Spain though, the news is troubling for Gas Gas fans, as the company’s assets will be liquidated, with the hope of raising enough money to pay-off the company’s creditors.
Perhaps already a reflection on the waning popularity of the brand, but the slow-to-break news this week is that Spanish motorcycle brand Gas Gas has filed for bankruptcy.
The news comes after an earlier effort by the Spanish company to try and reconcile its debt of roughly €30 million, and to restructure its business to be more profitable.
With a last-minute deal between the shareholders falling through, Gas Gas had no choice but to file with the Spanish courts.