It's meant as basically a low count specialty bike. So, compare Husky's sales of what 10 thousand bikes/yr compared to Honda's 15 million bikes a year. Husky, Gas Gas, Sherco, Beta will never have that sales volume, so they maintain a kind of built for a select market philosophy.
Now that makes more sense, except wasn't it said that the tooling was moved already? Maybe premature info. Anyway, a Chinese op in the old factory would satisfy parts obligations a lot cheaper than the Italian union crew. How would they pull that off though?
I'm starting to think there is some chinese monkey biz going on here. This recent info / maybe rumor and this bike... http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/first-look-–-gas-gas-ec-250-4t-cami.40216/ ...looking pretty chinese built, maybe GG/OSSA and the chinese are up to something?
They have done stuff like that before though, with Chinese air cooled motors. The Enduros and Trials bikes always stayed in Spain. Whats funny about the old factory thing is how often do the Chinese mfg out of China? If GG has the rights to the designs, can SP still mfg parts? If the rights deal is true, and that part does seem so, it would make more sense that GG would be setting up a Chinese contract mfg for the motors. That would be a lot easier, cheaper, and safer than trying to do it in house.
Old (2014 Husky and older) X-lite motors = assembled in Italy by Husqvarna New (purchased by GG) X-lite motors = assembled by GasGas The point of assembly of the X-lite motors, with regard to continued usage by GasGas, will be different than the point of assembly of all previous X-lite motors. GMP is cautioning that this may be bad (I, personally, don't have an opinion on that subject). Doesn't seem complicated to me.
An off-topic thought: Everybody here is seemingly thinking that this is a positive development. I hope that guys over at the GasGas forums are complaining about the new "HuskyGas" bikes and jumping ship because they don't want a rebadged Husky engine in their bikes. Would be good karma for all the griping you guys did with the KTM buyout.
Be very careful about Husqvarna manufactured X-Lites. They take a significant amount of money to get them to run right, then they grenade. If you've got a factory support team behind you that tears down every engine, modifies it, and replaces it when it wears out then I'm sure it can be a good racing platform, but for the average sport rider, I've gotta say it sucks.
Every one has an opinion .... often based upon experience .... in my personal experience after 120 HARD hours with ZERO problems I managed to fail to connect the vapor return line correctly and lost all of the engine oil .... which resulted in a piston seizure .... according to ZipTy the rest of the motor looks perfect. The engine is not an old Vinduro style air cooled XR () but it's far from a complete grenade either. That said .... I've worked in manufacturing enough to guess that there might be a bit of a learning curve in the process of putting these little engines together so they stay together.
That's it, if the Husky motor is so critical from a mfg standpoint, in the Italian plant and with support from the design engineers, odds are its not going to be better, at least in the short term, from a new startup operation. Let's face it, it's a very "on the edge" design with light weight and high output as priorities. This places high demands on materials, cost, and precision to achieve a reasonable life. It's just a basic design compromise. GG has attempted a 250F several times since the craze started from the original YZ250F. There have been prototypes, and some even made it to WEC races. They could never make it both survive and produce good power.
Name one bike this setup has been successful on ? BTW, I would take a aircooled bike anytime and win on it. Been there and done that. Still can.
From gasgasrider.org...... Downtime - server maintenance and upgrade Jeff. They must be installing Husky parts.....
BS ...And thanks for the opportunity to call BS ... First and foremost, I do not spend money on Huskies to get them right ... That's almost comical ... I don't even change plugs very often but I do add alot of pump gas to their tank... Just the average dirt rider type gas from the Shell station ... Nothing fancy for me, for sure, and my Huskies. They are all GO and not for a show. Notice how stock my bikes are except for the graphics... Sorry Charlie, but I like ~everything about them, even stock. My xlite engines: 1st - 2010 TC250 - 140 hrs and counting 2nd - 2010 TC250 -- 230 hrs and counting 3rd - 2012 TC250 -- Just got it .. Expect to see more on this bike and the 010 bikes in the coming yrs here. I'm gonna get my moneys' worth out of these harda$$ Huskies dirt bikes before I pass them on to the next Husqvarna rider. Go to the ride report section here on the cafe for ~4 yrs(?) worth of my riding videos and don't forget to check the racing section also for my racing videos and pics ... I've probably got 300 ride videos on Youtube to watch also ...You'll stumble across my 08 TXC250 out there also ... ~950 hrs before its' engine needed work also ... -- Yep, the Husky xlite engines have won a few championships around the world ... And competed well in many other races ...
I'm not sure how you measure success? Yamaha 250F and 450F reverse engines are doing well this season, in Eastern US off road racing.
