KTM To Revive The Legendary 990 Duke Soon!

Imagine a 999cc v-twin powerhouse belting out a whopping 120PS, housed in a 189kg naked. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? But KTM managed to achieve that – way back in 2004 – with the 990 Duke. And now, 19 years later, Team Orange is set to bring back this insane, legendary naked in a sharper and crazier-than-ever avatar.  So, coming to that, the KTM 990 Duke revival has been spied testing, and it looks awe-inspiring, and quite astonishing.

This is not the first time this bike has been spied testing, it has been in the pipeline since at least 2021. However, those were the earlier iterations of the bike, and the latest test mule could be what we get in the production model.

If you ever looked at the OG 990 Duke, you could easily distinguish it from the other bikes. And following that unique persona, the upcoming bike too, flaunts an aggressive design which will easily stand out among the other KTM bikes.

It gets a really beefy fuel tank, with split tank shrouds that will remind you of a sharp crab claw. While the headlight seems to be a 3D render, it sure is aggressive and features vertically stacked projector headlights. Oh, and it is highly likely that this unique design makes it to production as well.

The OG 990 Duke was powered by a 999cc V-twin engine, and made 120PS. That said, it is too soon to talk about the new one, but considering that the 890’s parallel-twin makes 121PS and 99Nm, the upcoming 990 Duke could make somewhere north of 150PS and could cross the 100Nm mark.

Most of its hardware, too, seems to be similar to the 890 Duke – WP inverted fork and monoshock, with discs with radial Brembo calipers. While the trellis frame is likely to be the same as the 890 Duke, the bolt-on subframe looks quite different, and along with that, even the aluminium swingarm is different.

Now you may think why a 990 if there is already an 890, right? Well, because, the new bike will be a much more powerful machine than its younger sibling and bridge the gap between the 1290 Duke and 790 Duke a bit better. Apart from that, the 990 Duke and the upcoming 690 Duke, which will be a step up from the 390 Duke, will be more of global products. On the other hand, the 790 Duke and 890 Duke will be for specific markets only.

Now with the re-advent of the moniker, the 990 Duke will become the new middleweight bike from KTM and will take the fight to the Ducati Streetfighter V2 and MV Agusta Brutale 800 RR.

Now of course, it is highly unlikely that this gorgeous beast will ever come to India, however, nothing will stop us from drooling over it from afar.

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