Husaberg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Husaberg is a Swedish manufacturer of off-road and supermoto motorcycles.
This company manufactures off road motorcycles with four-stroke engines only.
These machines are known for a particularly good chassis and larger displacement engines and for their race-oriented philosophy.
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[edit] Origins
After the motorcycle section of the traditional Swedish brand Husqvarna was bought in 1987 by the Italian company Cagiva, some of its engineers, led by Thomas Gustavsson, stayed in Sweden and founded Husaberg Motor AB in 1988.
The name Husaberg was only made official by Gustavsson when entering an enduro race at Skillingaryd, as he was forced to declare the make of his motorcycle.
The Husaberg team tried to compensate for their lack of funds by their courage to rely on technical innovations and could never afford to hire established professional riders but rather ambitious rookies such as Joël Smets, Jimmie Eriksson, Walter Bartolini, Kent Karlsson, Anders Eriksson, Jaroslav Katrinak, Peter Jansson, ...
[edit] KTM Ownership
Unfortunately, the good results on the tracks did not compensate for the slow sales and Husaberg eventually was purchased by the Austrian motorcycle manufacturer KTM in 1995.
Although Husaberg motorcycles have been produced at the KTM factory in Mattighofen, Austria since 2003, the development department remains in Sweden.
It is asserted that KTM studied the design of the Husaberg engines to improve its own.
The current KTM slogan, "Ready to Race", was also taken from Husaberg, whose current slogan is now "4 Stroke Force".
[edit] Reliability
The earlier Husaberg engines (1989-1997) were known to have premature engine failures due to the fact that they do not have an oil pump and rely on oil delivery from the timing chain.
It is asserted that the reliability and quality of the engines have clearly improved over the years and is now comparable to that of more established brands, Japanese included.
[edit] Palmares
Husaberg won the FIM 500cc Motocross World Championship with Belgian rider Joël Smets in 1995, 1997 and 1998.
They also won 4 Enduro World Championships in 1990, 1991, 1995 and 1998.
[edit] Models
The current lineup includes enduro and supermoto models only.
The motocross and cross-country (wide ratio gearing, no lighting kit) models have been discontinued.
The model names are all composed of two letters: "F" as "Four-Stroke", then either "C" for the motocross, "E" for the enduro, "X" for the Cross-Country, or "S" for the supermoto models, followed by a number representing the engine displacement, then one last letter, either "E" for the electric-start, or "C" for the kick-start models.
Some older models were also listed with the number of gears: 4 or 6.
The current models for 2007 are as follow:
Enduro:
- FE 450 E - 450 cc enduro with electric start
- FE 550 E - 550 cc enduro with electric start
- FE 650 E - 650 cc enduro with electric start
Supermoto:
- FS 550 E - 550 cc supermoto with electric start
- FS 650 E - 650 cc supermoto with electric start
- FS 650 C - 650 cc supermoto without electric start
Previous models included different displacements, such as:
- 501 cc enduro and motocross
- 470 cc cross-country
- 400 cc enduro
- 350 cc enduro
