Ask the Editors- Is an ATC the same as an ATV?
Dear ATVC:
A friend of mine’s dad calls all ATVs “ATCs” even though we constantly correct him. What does ATC mean anyway?
ATC or all-terrain cycle was Honda’s designation for its 3-wheeler line. Don’t forget, while today’s do-it-all quads and UTVs have very little in common with motorcycles on a given manufacturer’s line, this certainly wasn’t the case in the late 1970s/ early 80s.
Interestingly, as the industry evolved to require a minimum of four wheels, Honda changed its model prefix from ATC to Fourtrax (or just “TRX”); a tradition that it carries on even to this day.
