Husqvarna Motorcycles Set To Enter India: Everything You Need To Know About The Venture

As Bajaj and KTM celebrated ten years of working together, they announced something that made Indian motorcycling enthusiasts rejoice. An official statement said that Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director of Bajaj Auto and Stefan Pierer, CEO of KTM, have decided to take the Husqvarna Motorcycles brand global, and start production in India.

The Husqvarna brand might sound new to most Indians, the motorcycle manufacturer though, is far from new. The Swedish company was founded in 1689 in a town called Huskvarna, Sweden, as a manufacturer of muskets and rifles, supplying the Swedish and Norwegian armies. The company later started producing bicycles and finally made the switch to motorcycles in 1903.

Husqvarna, has, over the years, racked up victory after victory in various forms of motorcycle racing. In their early years they developed motorcycles for street use and raced them at road racing circuits like the Isle of Man TT, but they are better known for producing world championship winning motocross and enduro bikes.

Throughout the 1960s, their lightweight, two-stroke engined off-road motorcycles made the dominating four-stroke motorcycles from England, obsolete. Over the next two decades, Husqvarna became a force to reckon with, in the off-road racing world, as they won 14 motocross world championships in the 125, 250 and 500cc categories, 24 enduro world championships and 11 Baja 1000 victories.

Today, Husqvarna produces a diverse range of motocross, enduro and supermoto machines powered by 125 to 576cc two-stroke or four-stroke engines developed in-house. Husqvarna is still a force to reckon with, in world enduro and world supermoto championships.

In July 2007, Husqvarna Motorcycles was purchased by BMW Motorrad for a reported 93 million Euros (Rs 683.68 crores today) and on 31 January 2013, BMW Group announced that Pierer Industrie AG had bought all stakes in Husqvarna AG for an undisclosed amount.

Pierer Industrie AG is headed by Stefan Pierer, the current CEO of KTM Motorcycles. Since then, Husqvarna has been working in sync with KTM to produce motorcycles, and some of Husqvarna's motorcycles share parts with KTM's motorcycles.

There is absolutely no doubt that Husqvarna is a modern motorcycle brand with lots of heritage. Thanks to the Bajaj-KTM relationship, we in India will soon be able to purchase motorcycles from this brand boasting nearly 115 years of experience in manufacturing motorcycles.

The announcement from Bajaj-KTM said that the Husqvarna Svartpilen 401, Vitpilen 401, and Vitpilen 701 would at first be produced in Mattighofen, Austria and launched early in 2018. Production of the Vitpilen 401 and Svartpilen 401 for global markets will be shifted to Bajaj Auto's Chakan factory in Pune at a later date.

The Bajaj factory is expected to double the production of KTM and Husqvarna motorcycles over the next two years, as these motorcycles would be exported to other Asian markets and Europe as well.

So what is Husqvarna bringing to the table in India?
The Vitpilen 401 and Svartpilen 401 will be produced in India, so it is expected that these motorcycles will be launched here first. We speculate that the Vitpilen 701 might be imported as a Completely Built Unit (CBU), or a Completely Knocked Down (CKD) kit at a later stage, but there has been no official confirmation on it yet.

The Svartpilen 401 and Vitpilen 401 both share underpinnings and powertrain derived from the KTM Duke 390. The common bits between the siblings from Husqvarna and the cousin from KTM include the chassis, swingarm, rear and front suspension (might be tuned differently as per the weight), and the engine.

The liquid-cooled 373.2cc, single-cylinder engine is expected to be in the same state of tune as it is on the KTM, producing 43bhp and 37Nm. The Husqvarna siblings lose a lot of body work compared to the 390 Duke, but some parts are made of aluminium, hence the weight is expected to be around the same, hence, power-to-weight ratio would also be similar. One can also expect similar 0-100 times.

The design language of both, the Vitpilen (Meaning ‘White Arrow' in swedish) and Svartpilen (Meaning ‘Black Arrow' in Swedish) scream out the words ‘Modern Scrambler', as the underpinnings are modern, but the design language is typical scrambler/cafe racer.

Scramblers were off-road motorcycles, which in the late 20th century were modified with an upright seating position, an almost flat seat, and sometimes more power, to be used on and off the road.

The Vitpilen and Svartpilen then, stay true to Husqvarna's off-road DNA but can ride very well on the road too. While the basic design of both the motorcycles is the same, the changes are in the little details. The Svartpilen gets wide, motocross-style handlebars while the Vitpilen gets dropped-down, cafe-racer style, split handlebars. Both motorcycles ride on 17-inch spoked wheels shod with rugged knobbly off-road tyres on the Svartpilen and grippy Metzeler Sportec M5 tyres on the Vitpilen.

The Svartpilen has a rugged, off-road friendly design, which is further accentuated by the aluminium rack on the tank, and the aluminium engine guard as well whereas the Vitpilen, on the whole, maintains a clean, urban cafe racer/scrambler style design. Braking duties are handled by a 320mm disc up front and 230m disc at the rear, with Bosch's two-channel ABS system as standard, again, taken straight off the KTM 390 Duke.

It is expected that motorcycles from Husqvarna will be positioned just as KTM motorcycles are, but will cater to those who prefer something that would stand out from the crowd.

Pricing details are not available yet and would take quite some time to be officially announced, but we expect them to be priced at almost the same levels as the KTM 390 Duke since almost all the parts are shared.

However, the Husqvarna uses many aluminium body parts, while KTM uses plastic and fibre. This might lead to these motorcycles being priced just a little more than the 390 Duke.

The Husqvarna 401 siblings would compete against its cousins, the Bajaj Dominar and the KTM 390 Duke, alongside other competitors like the Mahindra Mojo, Benelli TNT 300, Kawasaki Ninja 300, Yamaha YZF R3 etc. when considering engine capacity and price to an extent. However, the Husqvarna twins would be in a segment of their own, as there are no motorcycles like them in India right now.

DriveSpark Thinks!

If you thought, that bright orange KTMs were motorcycles that stood out in a crowded motorcycle market such as ours, wait until the Husqvarna bikes get here. Although Husqvarna would need to add a saree guard as part of Indian rules and regulations, we expect most customers to take them off immediately after delivery.

It looks like the Bajaj-KTM duo are set to take the Indian motorcycling market to the next level, again. This time, with help from the Swedish.