Actual news on the KTM purchase of Husqvarna

This is all really interesting...in the future the forum may need to have specific sections for bike classifications by country rather than cc"s.......imagine categories "Swedish husky"...."Italian husky"....."Austrian husky".."still built in Italy husky Mv Augusta".ok maybe not...really got excited to see that the legacy bikes might survive all this...I love the legacy 2st line up, the old 610"s...they are bullet proof, perfect egros.... I would buy if it was Mv...cagiva...

Simple really, just a switch from the Company being named Cagiva and MV Agusta being a brand to vice versa....

All starts out with Harley buying Aermacchi in Italy to build small bore bikes back in the 60's. The Castiglioni Family buys Aermacchi brand and factory from HD in the late 70's and starts Cagiva. They also buy Ducati and a pile of other Italian brands.... MV Agusta, Moto Morini and more. They build the first Cagiva dirt bike in '80 and then buy Husky in '86. The Cagiva dirt bikes transition over to being Huskys, but Cagiva still builds DS and Adventure bikes. '97 Cagiva sells Ducati and after 2000 loses access to the Ducati engines used in some Cagiva bigger models. They start to bring back the MV Agusta brand to replace Ducati, as their top brand. The company will be re-named MV Agusta from Cagiva to reflect this. Cagiva will remain as a brand of street bikes and Husky is the dirt bike. '07 BMW buys the Husky dirt bikes from MV and one factory. Harley in a suprise move buys MV and the factory they sold Cagiva back about the same time. A year or so later HD wakes up and sells it back to MV for 1 Euro! I left out the almost sale to Piaggio and short lived sale to Proton!


MV Agusta SP and its brands.... MV Agusta and Cagiva will be buying back the present Husqvarna Factory, but not the Brand name Husqvarna. They will use this to increase the number of Cagiva bikes produced back to higher levels.

Norman, I assume we can expect some kind of announcement by MV when their deal with SP is final. I sure hope they do plan to continue to produce the x-lites, 125's and possibly the new 2T big bores. Any rumors on when this could be announced? I wonder if this will come out in SP's post Easter state of the union(Husky) press release? I know we are only a little over a week away from this but who wants to wait for official when we can get the early insider poop.

WOW! Could this mean we could see the '04-'10 dohc 4t platform back, the 630, and the continued existence and evolution of their x-lite and their 2t's ?! I say their 2t's as I am only guessing that the dfi 2t we heard of could be a BMW design, which is what SP may have wanted. The x-lite being a Cagiva design, but brought to life by BMW. I for one would love to see the Cagiva platforms live on and evolve. This tale keeps getting better and better.

Thanks Norman for not only breaking rumors, but also the history lesson, helps us late comers.
This makes sense related to the rumor that MV was acquiring the factory in Varese.
Of course this could mean a return to dysfunctional distribution network, hard to get parts, and always on the verge of bankruptcy, but hey, I will take my chances!

Thanks R, Hope you can help us translate when press releases hit.

I sure hope this is true. Let the Elephant Fly people!! Kind of Ironic who won the National Enduro today.

CaptNemo knows nothing of this - You are "Corn-fusing" me with someone else. But it does sound pretty cool.

The latest restyle is already here in the form of the "rivale" which is based on the F3 (mini F4 engine). This bike is targeted to run against the Ducati Multistrade. Have a look at the design cues and tell me that there is no shared DNA with the 449/511, Strada/Terra & Nuda. Just look at the headlight and front mudguard design. BTW, have a look at youtube for the MV Augusta Megafactories story from Discovery Channel. The Varese MV Augusta production line and the R&D departments are the same ones that produced all of the pre BMW Huskies. I have even seen pictures of the old 610's coming out of the same front gate.

All this speculation is interesting. And informative. Cripes, to see the Castiglionis (well the heirs) make even more from spectacular "deals", would be 'entertaining' - Again...........

But, it's time to pull collective heads out of the sands and give thought to where sales will become much more "important".And profitable.

Not so much in the Western, Northern Hemisphere.

The biggest sales potential is in the Asian regions - China, India, South East Asia etc, etc. With nods to South America, and Africa.

Just give thought to the Billions of people in China, India and the combination of other Asian States / Indonesia.

That's where true, massive sales potential is

And Not Just In Small Capacity Commuter Bikes. Though, they do account for many millions of bike sales, and look to account for many, many more Millions.

Check out Hero Motorcycles sales. And Bajajs ( no, not the Bajaj KTMs - that is just embryonic - perhaps just at the 'cell seperation' stage).

The populations are So Huge, with such a massive increase in the middle class's / money'd individuals, it's staggering. China, is reputed to have (by the end of this year, at the least) more Millionaires than the total population of North America. Something along the lines of 300 Million and upwards.

Now, as I've written elsewhere, if just a poofteenth of a poofteenth of a percentage of those people get the "Motorcycle Bug", you're looking at many millions of extra sales - in "luxury / discretionary purchase goods". Road Bikes / Dirt Bikes.

They have plenty of land in those places, especially as the populace flock to the cities.

Russia, on a much smaller scale, is a growing market, as is South America. Africa, takes huge amounts of small bikes.

Honda have long produced big quanities of their bikes in Brazil - with their own Brazilian developed and made models, we elsewhere, never see. And, look to the amount of Manufactures that have bike plants in Asia - Thailand produces many Japanese brand bikes - Honda notabley. But other Japanes brands. Triumph has at least 5 factories there, Ducati, Harley (soon - if not already?) and on and on. And Not just CKD (complete knock down) bike production. For example, I think the Triumph Bonnevilles and the 675s are produced almost entirely in Thailand (and Triumphs Painting facilities are nearly all in their Thailand facilities - almost since the very start of the John Bloor era), Ducatis smaller 659 / 696 Monsters etc are made in Thailand. Ohlins have a factory / factories now in Thailand. I 'think' WPktm have / are planning production facilities in Asia.

I think I read the USA took 12 / 12.8 thousand KTMs, of all types, in the last published KTM sales break downs.

Almost not worth catering for, if you think of it in pure numbers, and profits. And it goes for most manufacturers. Perhaps the best we "Westerners" can hope for, is that our respective race series, continue to be "spectacular enough " - eg: Moto GPs, WSBK, Dakar, SX, MXGPs, the US Outdoors etc, etc - that they are continued to be used as marketing / advertising for the Millions that may buy the products, all over the World.

Reality.

Oh, On a more wistful tack:

I'd love to see Peirer 'go it alone', and have Husky to himself.

To concentrate his considerable skills on.

To make "Huskies". Of all sorts.

But, "Pigs Might Fly", as is so often said.

I'd love to be wrong on that 'PMF' thing, though.

Been reading this thread awhile and I have to ask, all this for maybe 10,000 bikes a year? As of now? I really don't know. The Japanese have no real interest in off road bikes anymore, Civics, side by sides, generators, and boat motors are more profitable than CRFs, SX is good for brand awareness maybe. Tracks and riding areas are closing by the hour in our country. Our demographic(riders) average age is rising every year, kids don't play baseball or hunt or fish let alone ride, the days of a kid mowing neighborhood lawns for an RM125 are over. Emerging markets? Not so much, I don't really see India or China developing a recreational off road motorcycling scene. Husky's days as an independently developed and built dirt bike are probably over. The market is just not there. Rebadging is really the only thing that makes sense. MV and Cagiva? Boy, I don't know about that either. They have always appeared to be a rudderless ship business wise. And Italian factories are notorious for labor problems. Didn't Huskies employees even sabotage their own Kymco motors? I think we have to realize our sport is shrinking dramatically, and while there will be healthy clubs and well attended races and series for years to come, eventually we will be just like snowmobiling if we are lucky. 3-4 manufacturers making equipment for middle aged folks who trailer their machines a couple of hours away to ride on designated trails the weekends we have time for. Small street bikes, commuters, maybe, high end dirt bikes, I don't know.

I guess we won't know until after Easter, but more info is filtering in from Europe..... It may end up Cagiva dirt bikes are off the table and they will just manufacter spares for present Huskys.

I'm getting dizzy . On a positive note our club put on the VCHSS race yesterday and as I worked a MX jump as a flagger I saw way more Huskys fly buy than I have in the past 5 years.

It just really appears alot of folks are looking at this aquisition as fans and not realistically. The dirt bike world is getting really small. When was the last time you saw any manufacturer's add in a magazine? We are even running out of places to use them. The name is valuable, the 125/144 is great(we own one) but it is not even a real racing class anymore, the 250/310 seems kind of well received - but how desired is it really amongst the general riding public, the 499/510 -BMWs? who knows where that will go, and the current 250/300 are percieved by many as obsolete. The current consumers of Husky don't care about these issues, OK, but unless Husky changes these issues they will not grow their market share in an already declining market, making survivability unsustainable. Harder yet, they have to convince consumers they are meeting these challenges. The CEO may have bought the brand for "passions" sake, but passion will not pay his suppliers or employees. Would you invest your retirement account into the company? This buyout really does not look good for the brand or the dirt bike consumer in general.

Could do what Cagiva did in mid to late 90's and "alter" the H logo by a mere 16% aspect ratio (remember the shorter fatter kind of out of fitness looking H that was used then)
This satisfies the 15% different rule on trademark logo rule.