Ask the Editors: Where is the Fuel Injected Honda TRX450R?
Soon you won’t even be able to build your own.
A few years ago the sport/ performance ATV segment was hanging by a thread but it was still chugging along. One by one the American, Canadian and Japanese manufacturers dropped the manual-clutch sport quads from their lineup until all that remained were Yamaha and Honda.
Honda, never one for giving up to the competition, appeared to have the tools and talent to update the very long-in-tooth TRX450R with a modernized variant rife with technology such as fuel injection and race-tuned suspension. The industry was flooded with rumors about such things at the time.
Unfortunately in the period since, the performance segment has all but dissipated entirely. In having announced their 2018 lineup already, not only will there not be a fresh TRX450R coming this year, they actually discontinued both the current TRX450R and TRX400EX!
As it stands the “sportiest” quad on their line will be the TRX250X play/ trail machine. This is a terrible sign of the times as far as the sport quad market are concerned for everyone except perhaps Yamaha, who is the final manufacturer left holding down the fort.
One can only hope that clearing away both popular performance ATVs from their line is a part of Honda’s long term strategy to slip a new model in their place but we (and you) would be wise not to get our hopes up on that.
