KTM ends GasGas motorcycle production in Spain
It’s more bad news for GasGas as KTM announces the end of motorcycle production in Spain.
KTM’s brutal sword of financial reckoning has come down on subsidiary GasGas, with production of motorcycles set to be dropped in the latter’s hometown factory.
Pair this with recent news that GasGas is abandoning its trials team and you can’t help but feel concern for the 40-year-old Spanish brand. For its part, KTM says it plans to move production of GasGas motorcycles to its factory in Mattighofen, Austria.
“This allows us to consolidate our expertise, optimize production processes, and strengthen efficiency within the company,” a KTM official is quoted as saying in the Austrian newspaper Salzburger Nachrichten.
We can’t help but raise a sceptical eye at all this. KTM says it won’t be hiring any additional factory workers in Austria to take on the additional workload that theoretically comes from bringing in GasGas work.
This is the same KTM, mind, whose production schedule is so completely out of whack that the 2025 model year 1390 Super Duke GT won’t actually be built until 2027. The same KTM whose majority owner has declared that “European manufacturing is dead,” and has pushed for the brand to shift production to Asia.
Meanwhile, KTM says only 20 of the 300 employees at GasGas’ factory in Girona, Spain, will be affected. It’s unclear what happens to the other 280 members of staff, although it is true that GasGas produces a line-up of more than three dozen electric bicycle models.
GasGas was founded in Girona in 1985. It was initially built as a company focused on trials bikes - and still carries a lot of prestige in that arena - but soon turned its hand to enduro and motocross motorcycles. Following a period of financial difficulty, GasGas was acquired by KTM’s PIERER Mobility AG in 2019.
The focus on electric bicycles is more recent but seemingly more dedicated. On one confusing part of its website, GasGas describes itself as “an off-road eMTB brand born of Spanish roots.” No mention of motorcycles whatsoever.
All in all, it makes one doubtful about whether GasGas will be operating as a motorcycle brand for too much longer.
For more motorcycle news written by humans stick with Visordown.
Chris Cope is a fourth-generation journalist, originally from Texas. He has lived in the UK for roughly two decades and has been writing about motorcycles for most of that time. He has written for dozens of publications and websites in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia.
