Did you see the photos of the KTM 790 Concept bike out in late 2016? It looked awesome, but the finished article has elicited a bit of grumbling on the SuperDuke forum (and no doubt all the other KTM fora) because the original radical concept appeared to have been watered down a bit... That's life unfortunately, once the concept is approved the Engineers are under the thumb of the accountants to make it affordable, and the vehicle type approval mob to ensure that it has all the requisite lights, mirrors, indicators, number plate mount etc. and the result is invariably a bit diluted from the original.
Concept bikes are high-quality shed builds basically, and if you want something that radical you'll probably have to build it yourself. I can imagine the response had KTM just stuck lights on the concept bike to sell them on the road... "It looks fantastic, but you want 25 grand for one???" That's what hand-built specials start at basically. To make things affordable they have to start looking towards the more budget end of the supply chain. The 790 will probably be priced at the top end of the middleweight twin class, it'll cost more than an MT-07, but will be far more exclusive with it, and turn a lot more heads. It'll be interesting to see the multi-bike tests to see how it stacks up against the others in the bracket.
