Husaberg designer?

bergbro · Feb 6, 2012

Whilst reminiscing through an old (1994) Performance Bike mag I found an artical on SOS racers. Although surprised by some of the claimed HP outputs of some rather ordinary motors, I was even more surprised by a claim that Folan actually designed the Husaberg engine then sold it to Husaberg.

I have read all about Husaberg origins but I have never heard this story before. Can anyone verify it or is it just journalistic license?

RDP501 · Feb 6, 2012

That is an interesting story, but the way I heard it was that Husaberg is the result of Husqvarna engineers who had no interest in moving to Italy after Cagiva bought the motorcycle division and moved production out of Sweden. They had been working on a new design and, after Cagiva moved everything to Italy, got together with some investors and formed Husaberg. I do remember the Folan but it seems like it was a v-twin motor they came up with. Here is a link to an article I found: http://www.motocrossactionmag.com/Revie ... -3860.aspx

Supposedly the early Husaberg motor is based on the Husqvarna 2-stroke motor and that seems very plausible to me from comparing them side by side after I bought my '96 FE501 (I still had my '87 Husqvarna 500XC at the time). It seems like the bolt pattern on the clutch covers was the same although I never actually tried swapping them to see. The one difference was that the water-cooled Huskys had the water pump driving off the crankshaft and the 'Bergs of that time ran off the camshaft. Aside from the "Bergs having rough looking sand-cast cases, the bottom ends looked very much alike. I do know that the countershaft sprockets would interchange as I used one of my Husqvarna sprockets on my FE501 (it was a brand new one I had sitting around).

berger · Feb 6, 2012

The berg motor shares a lot in common with the Folan design. Perhaps even to go as far as saying that the original berg motors were somewhat of a Folan knock off.

http://www.folan.se/history.htm

Husaberg designer?

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