Badge engineering. It’s been a big part of the automotive industry for ages as various manufacturers take over or buy into rival brands and start crossdressing products from one marquee to another.
In the dirtbike world, the practice has been somewhat less prolific. But who can forget that time Suzuki and Kawasaki announced a strategic business alliance in 2001 and we suddenly had bright-green DR-Z400s thundering through the undergrowth?
More recently, Austrian moto mogul Stefan Pierer has been on a determined drive to escalate his KTM-based business into a powerhouse of the global motorcycle world. And the way to do that is to make more motorcycles. And obviously, if you have a second brand of motorcycle, you can make more motorcycles to sell. And then if you have a third brand, well, watch that balance sheet grow!
And that’s where the Pierer Mobility Group is at right now: three motorcycle brands. There’s KTM, which Pierer raised from the ashes of the historic Austrian brand’s bankruptcy way, way back in 1991. Then he added Husqvarna in 2013, scoring a tasty deal after BMW’s
