Renthal was formed in 1969 by motorcycle enthusiasts Andrew Renshaw and Henry Rosenthal to make handlebars for trials bikes. The name is a combination - REN from Renshaw and the THAL from Rosenthal.
In 1975 the company entered the motocross market with full time production in Manchester, England, the very same place where the company resides today. The company had steady growth through the 70's and 80's and finally broke into the US market in the early 90s. Renthal currently employs over 60 production staff and its products are sold in 42 countries worldwide.
In October 2000 Renthal's factory was destroyed by a massive fire. What replaced the original factory was a completely new, state of the art manufacturing and design facility. Renthal's 41,000 sq. ft. factory now uses the most state of the art equipment available for manufacturing, quality control, R&D, and storage. This includes five Yamazaki two and three axis CNC turning centers, seven Kitamura machining centers, one Kardex Shuttle 500NT automated vertical storage system, and a number of other custom specification machines. These custom spec machines include bar bending machines, a fatigue tester and drop test rig created to fatigue aluminum handlebars.
In 2004 Renthal added to its list of records, becoming the first aluminium handlebar to be fitted as OE on a Japanese off-road motorcycle, possibly one of the highest accolades of quality a company in this industry could receive. Now in 2010, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and KTM choose Renthal handlebars for their performance motocross models.