Diamond Atelier DA#22 ULTRON: The KTM-Hearted Hyperbike That Just Stole Goodwood

There's no ex-showroom price for the Diamond Atelier DA#22 ULTRON, and there won't be one in India any time soon — this is a one-off, hand-built prototype, not a bike you'll find at a KTM dealership. But the engine sitting inside its aluminium shell is one Indian riders already know well: the 1301cc LC8 V-twin from the KTM 1290 Super Duke R, a bike that retails here for roughly ₹20.5 lakh ex-showroom. That connection is why the DA#22 matters beyond the custom-bike circuit it was built for.

Munich-based workshop Diamond Atelier unveiled the DA#22 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on July 13, calling it the first true hyperbike — a term the custom scene throws around often, usually for anything with a turbo bolted to it. Diamond Atelier's pitch is different. The bike started as a design brief, not an engine and frame. Engineers built the machine around a silhouette first, then packaged the mechanicals to fit. Internally, the project was codenamed ULTRON.

What KTM Power Looks Like Wearing a Diamond

Strip away the aluminium panels — each one hand-formed over roughly 800 hours by builder Marvin Diehl — and you find the familiar 75-degree V-twin from KTM's Super Duke lineup, tuned here to around 205 PS, comfortably north of 200 bhp. That's not a KTM crate engine dropped into a custom frame for show. Diamond Atelier has built its reputation on BMW and Ducati donor bikes; this is the workshop's first serious flirtation with Austrian muscle, and it's a statement about how far that LC8 engine can be dressed up without losing its identity.

The suspension leans hard into racing pedigree. A Wilbers TYPE 46 RR fork up front borrows tech from World Superbike paddocks, paired with a bespoke rear shock built specifically for this chassis. Diamond Atelier says the goal wasn't outright lap-time numbers — it was keeping the bike genuinely rideable despite a compact, aggressive stance that could easily have turned into a garage ornament.

Then there's the theatre. Aconity3D 3D-printed the titanium exhaust and top fork plate, the latter set with an actual diamond in sterling silver — a literal nod to the builder's name. DKB Special Parts contributed Formula 1-style switchgear and an illuminated clutch cover with a glass inspection window. Gilles Tooling supplied the rearsets. Even the front tyre is bespoke: 4JET etched a one-off diamond-pattern tread that echoes a matching motif inlaid into the bodywork. The paint might be the strangest detail of all — developed by Alex Bloch at Stilbruch Lack, it doesn't just reflect light, it emits it, glowing red when an electrical charge is applied. Only a single litre was ever mixed, all of it used on this bike, so the finish can never be exactly replicated.

Why This KTM V-Twin Story Matters for Indian Riders

None of this lands in an Indian showroom, and Diamond Atelier hasn't published a price — the DA#22 is described as the opening chapter of an "ultra-limited series" aimed at closing the gap between superbikes and hypercars, which usually means bespoke pricing negotiated per customer, not a number you'll see on a spec sheet. What it does confirm is something KTM fans in India can actually use: the Super Duke's LC8 V-twin has enough headroom that a boutique European builder chose it over a Ducati or BMW mill for a flagship hyperbike project. For a market where the 1290 Super Duke R is already the quickest thing KTM sells in India, that's a vote of confidence from outside the KTM ecosystem, not from it.

It also puts the DA#22 in unusual company. Bespoke hyperbike-adjacent builds — think Bimota's Tesi or Vyrus's Ducati-based specials — have historically been Ducati's playground almost exclusively. Diamond Atelier picking KTM's V-twin over Bologna's is a small but telling shift, and it's worth watching whether other custom houses follow.

For now, the DA#22 stays a Goodwood showpiece: road-legal, homologated, but built in numbers you could count on one hand — literally, since it's a prototype and not yet a production run. Riders here won't get a shot at ordering one, and honestly, most wouldn't want to given the maintenance reality of hand-printed titanium and one-of-a-kind paint. What they can do is get closer to the engine that made Diamond Atelier's engineers pick KTM in the first place.

If the LC8 V-twin's reputation is what pulled you into this story, the 1290 Super Duke R is where that engine actually lives in India, minus the diamond and the glowing paint. Check the on-road price and EMI for the KTM 1290 Super Duke R in your city on Drivio.