ATK has been founded by Horst Leitner in Utah, USA in 1980. The name of the company comes from the abbreviation for Anti Tension Kettenantreib, a device for elimination of the chain torque which Leitner, an Austria-born engineer, has developed and patented. Being a former 500GP racer himself, Horst Leitner has also designed the ATK 560, ATK 640, ATK 407 in the 1980′s and the Horst link design, known as an outstanding example of the suspension system, at the very beginning of the 1990′s.
