KTM news - Bow wow - 2008

We like the KTM X-Bow – hell, we named it our Sports Car of the Year – but we’ve always felt it could do with a bit more power.

KTM has said there’s a quicker official X-Bow on the way next year, but in the meantime, German tuner MTM has got to work on hotting up the winged, carbon-fibre lightweight.

MTM already tunes a whole bunch of VW-stable products, so the Audi-sourced two-litre TFSI in the X-Bow was a doddle to hot up: power is raised from 237bhp to a mighty 380bhp, presumably courtesy of some turbo tweakery and ECU remappery. It’s a word.

We don’t know exactly how quick that makes the MTM X-Bow, but given that the stock X-Bow will hit 60mph in just under four seconds, we’d guess the MTM will be hitting low threes, assuming it can actually get all the power down. Expect revised suspension and brakes to help with all that power.

Even if you’re not keen on all this aftermarket tuning stuff, it’s evidence that there’s a lot more power to come from the X-Bow… and that it could easily be brought up to fighting weight with the supercharged Ariel Atom. Good.

Just to clarify, the car is the picture isn’t the MTM X-Bow – we haven’t seen a picture of it yet – but rather the KTM’s GT4 racer. Which is always worth looking at, because it’s awesome…