If you were thinking of buying a KTM RC 8C.... don’t!
The KTM RC 8C sold out in less than five minutes to those you just know always get the Glastonbury tickets and the toilet roll in a pandemic...
Fortune is supposed to favour the brave but in this world of Glastonbury tickets and toilet roll during a pandemic, favour also favours the fast because the ‘hyper-focused’ track-only KTM RC 8C has already sold out.
In fact, such was the fast fingered ordering, it sold out quicker than anyone in the motorcycle press could get out their articles announcing the machine, which is loosely based the bike KTM campaigned in Moto2.
The KTM RC 8C sold out in 4mins 32secs to be exact - which is shorter than the length of Bohemian Rhapsody, quicker than it takes to order off Deliveroo and quicker than I can drag my lazy body across a mile… though the latter bit says more about me than the speed of the orders.
It’s perhaps little surprise the KTM RC 8C has proven so popular. Marking KTM’s return to the big sportsbike area, though you won’t find the RC 8C pulling up alongside you at the (traffic) lights any time soon, owners are promised ultra exclusivity with only 100 units being made available.
To make the RC 8C, KTM have swapped out the control-spec Triumph 765cc triple-cylinder engine with its own 889cc LC8c parallel twin, as shared with the 890 Duke R, which generates 128bhp and roars from an Akrapovic titanium muffler.
Combined with a featherweight 140kg, the KTM RC 8C is close to a 1:1 power-to-weight ratio, meaning it should have no trouble keeping up with more powerful but more cumbersome sportsbikes on track days.
If you happen to be one of the 100 happy owners reading this (kudos to your rapid digits), you are also in with a chance of being 25 that will receive a track day and tuition from experienced MotoGP racers Mika Kallio and Dani Pedrosa at Jerez in October.
If you happened to hit ‘buy’ at approximately 4mins 33secs then all we can suggest to you is to keep an eye on the classifieds… just watch out for any crash damage.
For everyone else there are murmurings this could be KTM testing the waters for a potential mid-range supersport or - whisper it quietly - a sportsbike around its new 990cc engine. We wait (im)patiently.
