Why We Design & Manufacture in the USA

From The Desk Of Bernhard Leitner, CEO

So, if you haven’t already guessed by sounding out my name, I wasn’t actually made in America. My family immigrated from Austria in 1980 when I was just five years old. My father, an engineer with big dreams, knew our tiny home country, smaller than the Mojave Desert, couldn’t give him the opportunities he was looking for.

Motorcycles were the beginning, manufacturing and engineering in America was the future.

His dream? To start an off-road motorcycle company in the world’s largest manufacturing hub. He didn’t know exactly where that was, only that it was somewhere in the USA. So, he bought a 1979 Winnebago, hooked up a motorcycle trailer, and hit the road. For two years he crisscrossed the country, visiting nearly every motorcycle dealership from Florida to Washington, before finally pulling that creaky handbrake for the last time in Southern California.

That’s where his company, ATK Motorcycles, came to life thanks to the incredible American manufacturing base he discovered. These shops were more accustomed to machining aerospace parts for McDonnell Douglas than motorcycle parts, but they welcomed the challenge and became partners in innovation. Later, under his next company, AMP Research, he expanded into mountain bikes and automotive components for the Big Three in Detroit all built on those same manufacturing relationships first forged through motorcycles.Over 40 years later, I’m still working with many of those very same companies, now led by the sons and daughters of the men my father once shook hands with. We still spend late nights over blueprints, sharing stories about how our dads once did the same.

My dad's story isn’t just history — it’s the foundation of every product we design today.

So, when people ask why we make everything in the USA, the answer is simple: because here, the product comes alive at every step. I get to talk directly with the men and women who make it great, to roll up my sleeves and be part of the process. That connection is something no overseas email can ever replace.

And that’s why LEITNER, down to the very last bolt, is proudly Made in the USA.

Take a stroll down memory lane...where passion for design met American manufacturing.

Working on the first ACS

Motorcycle ride with pops

The RV that started it all

Drawings of my extrusion from the start

Available now. Ready for your next adventure.