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Thursday, September 16, 2021
KTM 700 twin
This KTM 700 twin two stroke was made by Jerry van der Heiden for Dutch sidecar cross ace Ton van Heugten. Jerry many thanks for the pictures of this very trick engine! The twin consisted of two KTM 350 cross engines grafted together. Just one gearbox and final drive are used. The engine sits normally in the frame and the second cylinder is pointing directly forward. It's mounted to the front half of a KTM 350 lower end that is attached to the right side of the complete 350 engine. The cranks are timed so that both pistons move identically, and it fires as a single. Ton van Heugten won his last sidecar cross with it. Jerry made a total of 7 engines, most of them still exist today. It all started when Rudi Kurth made Yamaha 500 triples in the seventies for sidecar racing, he also grafted an extra cylinder to a twin. Jerry repeated this idea when he made a 350 triple for Takazumi Katayama, Katayama became world champion on a bike with such an engine in 1977. More about Jerry and this bike in a later post.