Brabus: A German supercar tuning company. KTM: An Austrian (sort of) performance motorcycle company. As unlikely as it may sound, they’ve teamed up in the past, and it appears they are about to do so again.
The crew at Motorcycle.com has been digging around in European government paperwork again (pretty easy to do these days, now that it’s all online), and they’ve found new filings from Brabus to protect rights to three names. Specifically, the Brabus 1400 R Rocket, Brabus 1400 R Tailor Made, and Brabus 1400 R Signature.
That seems to indicate we’re going to soon see the successor to the Brabus 1300 R, which was one of the most wildly successful hyperbikes in history—although, if you were to look for one on public roads, you’d never see it.
The Brabus 1300 R debuted in 2022, as an upgraded version of the KTM 1290 Super Duke platform. With an MSRP around $45,000 USD (think $60,000ish Canadian), the Brabus still grabbed a lot of attention. KTM said the machine sold out in only 115 seconds after it opened for orders that winter.
KTM and Brabus teamed up again for the 1300 R Masterpiece model in 2023, which was the last bike they collaborated on from the 1290 series. At that point, it sounded like it might be their final effort together, but the new 1400 R filings in Europe indicate otherwise.
If these machines are a KTM/Brabus team-up, no doubt they are based off the current-generation KTM 1390 Super Duke R EVO. We’d expect the price tag to be even higher this time around, with another round of auto-electro-suspension and carbon fibre bodywork. More deets when we know ’em.
