• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

Is husqvarna's identity gone?

Big Timmy said:
Most who would commonly do this don't know the difference in superior design or materials and just go for Japanese bikes which are all cookie cutter bikes. They do this for the cheaper overall cost of parts and upgrades being less costlyand more plentiful in the long run.
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What a load of crap.

You can mix parts on Jap bikes too (I do), and to say their components are somehow inferior says to me you are inexperienced when it comes to Jap quality. Japanese tooling is generally something to be admired. Bust a case? You can nearly always get a case half from another same model Jap bike and it will work just fine. I've owned KTM's and presently own a TE310 and I've never seen anything mechanically or quality-wise superior about them - but they do provide a different market option. Frankly, I prefer the simplicity of a clutch cable over a hydraulic unit, for example.

Funny you should say how you pass Jap bikes...like the bike is somehow the defining limit to speed. If that were the case, my old Jap KDX200's are quite a bit faster than the multitudes of shiney new KTM's I pass at the local riding area on a regular basis. But I'm not kidding myself... KTM's are the hot item now and plenty of newbies buy them too, reminding me of the mid 80's when everyone had to have a Honda CR500.
 
Haha that is some funny stuff. I've had 20 bikes now since I started riding in 1997. Of all of them, the most reliable have been German and Japanese, and then last would be Italian. That being said, I love my WR300 and it works great.
I kind of look at it this way. There are guys out there who are lucky enough to be with a beautiful AND trustworthy woman. But I dont have many experiences with said women. I have chosen beautiful woman who are in some way, CRAZY but I have enjoyed life with them while it lasted haha. Bikes have kind of been the same for me. Supermotos indeed would be the most like the aforementioned women.
Any of you guys ever date a girl who:
Got arrested with fellow workers from a race car driving school for having a paintball gun battle in a hotel?
Worked as a bartender at Hogs and Heffers?
Recieved her 2nd DUI in her driveway?
Kow's what ''heal-toe" method is when driving a manual transmission?

Why am I rambling on? Well if you want something different, unique, odd, exciting, sometimes crazy, buy an Italian bike lol. Or date one of my exes...
 
In memoriam​
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I'm proud to know that my TE310 is one of the last original Italian Husky's instead of the KTM influenced Husky. I saw the photos of the "new" Husky's and noticed right away that the swingarm was off of a KTM. So like the auto industry, one company is buying competition, rebadging and taking control of the total offering. Also will the price of the new Husky match a new KTM? Maybe more options would be available if the Japanese market actually gave an alternative. Alas that is not the case. We either buy Euro for a proper dual sport/trail/race bike or get stuck with basically an MX bike. Doesn't really matter what badge is on the bike, if it has a plate and I get to bipass California green/red sticker laws life is good. And now the question becomes how much of the Aftermarket industry products will become available or already fit the NEW Husky? More options is good thing in this instance.
 
Big Timmy said:
Combinations of the best of the available components of other bikes are cool as long as their done by the owner/riders and it meets there personal needs or criteria. My 2009 BMW G450X runs a 2011 TC449 Husky Engine now / revised gearbox ratios and a KTM WP 4860 set of trees and fork legs specifically set up for me by one of the biggest suspension companies out there. I also run the KTM front wheel with these forks. I've been doing this kind of stuff for 40 years and this bike well, it rips.

When you can combine the World Class Components with World Class raw materials and allow these materials to be worked by the Greatest European Proven Engineering Designers. It doesn't always make everybody happy, nor does its end product suit all the people all the time. Thats the reason some would rather buy a Japanese dirt bike and part with it in a few years. Most who would commonly do this don't know the difference in superior design or materials and just go for Japanese bikes which are all cookie cutter bikes. They do this for the cheaper overall cost of parts and upgrades being less costlyand more plentiful in the long run.

I laugh everytime I blow by one and could care a less about them existing.

I still have old late 70's Maico's stashed away.

All things need to be modified to meet the needs of the rider. Hence the Aftermarket. If one can't buy what he wants then you become skilled enough to just build it. Hence the Fabrication Industry. Anythings possible for the right price.

I don't think the KTM ownership can hurt the nameplate of the "Husqvarna Marque" or diminish its identidy. it has just brought the best minds together "again" it can only help. Lets see what comes of it.
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It really didn't bring the best minds together, one group was just replaced with another.
 
Big Timmy said:
Combinations of the best of the available components of other bikes are cool as long as their done by the owner/riders and it meets there personal needs or criteria. My 2009 BMW G450X runs a 2011 TC449 Husky Engine now / revised gearbox ratios and a KTM WP 4860 set of trees and fork legs specifically set up for me by one of the biggest suspension companies out there. I also run the KTM front wheel with these forks. I've been doing this kind of stuff for 40 years and this bike well, it rips.

When you can combine the World Class Components with World Class raw materials and allow these materials to be worked by the Greatest European Proven Engineering Designers. It doesn't always make everybody happy, nor does its end product suit all the people all the time. Thats the reason some would rather buy a Japanese dirt bike and part with it in a few years. Most who would commonly do this don't know the difference in superior design or materials and just go for Japanese bikes which are all cookie cutter bikes. They do this for the cheaper overall cost of parts and upgrades being less costlyand more plentiful in the long run.

I laugh everytime I blow by one and could care a less about them existing.

I still have old late 70's Maico's stashed away.

All things need to be modified to meet the needs of the rider. Hence the Aftermarket. If one can't buy what he wants then you become skilled enough to just build it. Hence the Fabrication Industry. Anythings possible for the right price.

I don't think the KTM ownership can hurt the nameplate of the "Husqvarna Marque" or diminish its identidy. it has just brought the best minds together "again" it can only help. Lets see what comes of it.
Click to expand...
 
rancher1 said:
It really didn't bring the best minds together, one group was just replaced with another.
Click to expand...
I just don't like KTM's first at the Husky brand. It's a KTM with a Husky logo. There is supposed to be more seperation between the two as time goes on and KTM has more time to do something different. I am looking forward towards the evolution and will keep an open mind. All in all I'd take a european bike over a Japanese bike anytime and I believe KTM will do a great job with the Husky brand. I do have one question when they hit the States are the Huskys going to be as expensive as the KTM's. When I was shopping the KTM 350 street legal model was like $9400. I got my leftover 2012 310 for $7399. Is the new Husky FE 350 going to approach that $9000 mark?
 
nep2012 said:
I just don't like KTM's first at the Husky brand. It's a KTM with a Husky logo. There is supposed to be more seperation between the two as time goes on and KTM has more time to do something different. I am looking forward towards the evolution and will keep an open mind. All in all I'd take a european bike over a Japanese bike anytime and I believe KTM will do a great job with the Husky brand. I do have one question when they hit the States are the Huskys going to be as expensive as the KTM's. When I was shopping the KTM 350 street legal model was like $9400. I got my leftover 2012 310 for $7399. Is the new Husky FE 350 going to approach that $9000 mark?
Click to expand...


Seeing that the Husaberg are higher retail than the KTM I would say the same bike with Husqvarna on it will still be more.
 
From Dirt Rider...

The biggest downside at this point is that Husky is considered a “premium” brand, so prices are not likely to drop—the days of the cheap, street-legal Husqvarna are officially over. But if the brand keeps charging as hard as it has in the past few months, there’s no telling what they’ll be able to accomplish in the coming years.

Read more: http://www.dirtrider.com/features/first-test-2014-husqvarna-model-lineup/#ixzz2hGOiif6F​
 
Hey, look at it this way. Indian has been revived...again. They are being produced by Bombardier out of Minnesota. But y'all know that it's a Canadian company (Can-Am anyone?) Looks like an indian, says it's an Indian, and doesn't sound like a snow sled or watercraft, so I guess it's an Indian.

The biggest brand in the US at one time, it's now just an offshoot of a larger muliti-national company trying to capitalize on it's name.

Sound familiar?
 
nep2012 said:
I have seen the new Husqvarna website and I am sort of dissappointed. No more 310 it is now replaced by a 350 and if you ask me it's a KTM. The fenders, the swingarm, the engine, the suspension, this is a KTM with the Husky logo on it. Take a look at the KTM and look at the Husky and everything is identical. KTM is just using the Husqvarna logo to market more bikes. The cuts on the fender, the swingarm, the motor, everything. Is it me or is this reality?
Click to expand...

Reality? Its really simple reality.

1) No Husky bikes are left over or made by previous owners so zero bikes from them for 2014 -- No factory is running that can even produce these bikes if they were even scheduled to be built.

2) The new owners make a different brand of bike. They have factories and workers making bikes at this moment. They have only ~6 months or so to bring something to market or zero bikes for Husqvarna in 2014.

Add the 2 statements up, give that sum 5 minutes of thought or less and you will come to the reality that the new bikes have to look like the new owners bikes because of statement 2. That's reality and you have been enlighten to it. It's not rocket science yet but getting close.
 
Huskynoobee said:
Hey, look at it this way. Indian has been revived...again. They are being produced by Bombardier out of Minnesota. But y'all know that it's a Canadian company (Can-Am anyone?) Looks like an indian, says it's an Indian, and doesn't sound like a snow sled or watercraft, so I guess it's an Indian.

The biggest brand in the US at one time, it's now just an offshoot of a larger muliti-national company trying to capitalize on it's name.

Sound familiar?
Click to expand...

Your metaphor doesn't work. The Indians being produced now are not using Polaris engines. They are not shoved into Polaris (or Victory) frames and merely painted differently. They ARE truly different, unique bikes.
 
the dirt bike article also said that Husaberg is no more. Now there are only 2 left, KTM and Husky. Which will endure? Why was the 'Berg killed off? Also the subframe of the new Husky is pure "berg.
 
ray_ray said:
Reality? Its really simple reality.

1) No Husky bikes are left over or made by previous owners so zero bikes from them for 2014 -- No factory is running that can even produce these bikes if they were even scheduled to be built.

2) The new owners make a different brand of bike. They have factories and workers making bikes at this moment. They have only ~6 months or so to bring something to market or zero bikes for Husqvarna in 2014.

Add the 2 statements up, give that sum 5 minutes of thought or less and you will come to the reality that the new bikes have to look like the new owners bikes because of statement 2. That's reality and you have been enlighten to it. It's not rocket science yet but getting close.
Click to expand...

Not really, SP could have taken the huskys and convereted the suspension and wheels to KTM components and kept the motor and frame. This would have resulted in very little engineering and would have replaced the 2nd most expensive components behind the motor cost. This would have created unique huskys but saved a lot of money buy using same source parts. The brakes are the same already so there wouldn't be any savings there except maybe more volume in the future. Of course he could have easily painted the frame white and used new graphics.
 
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