Take me to school! Honda was the first motorcycle manufacturer to have created unique sites specifically designed for motorcycle, ATV and Side by Side training and instruction. The centers teach over 11,000 riders a year, and classes are for riders of all ages—from 6 years old to adult. Bonus Fact: 1988 was the year Honda […] More »

A look at the sales stats side of things. Prior to the mid-2000s, ATV sales were in the neighborhood of 1-million units sold annually. The market came to a crashing halt in 2008 when the nation slipped into a recession brought about by the housing crisis. One of the first areas consumers begin to cut […] More »

First of its kind. Last of its kind. All ATVs were single-cylinder until 1987 when Yamaha released the Banshee. It made use of a 349cc, 2-stroke, liquid cooled, twin-cylinder engine configuration. While many manufacturers have since followed up with twin cylinder engines in the time since, the Banshee remains the only factory 2 cylinder 2-stroke […] More »

Early farm help. Back in the early to mid-1970s, ATVs like the Honda ATC 90 (three-wheeler) had yet to establish a firm target market, farmers began to take interest in using them to get around and handle farm work. A big part of the appeal was that they were quicker, cost less and used 8% […] More »

Putting the power to the ground. Nearly all of the ATVs sold on the market today come equipped with fully automatic transmissions (except for a small percentage of the market consisting of sport and race models that use a manual clutch transmission) but this wasn’t always the case. Throughout most of the 80s and on […] More »

First of its kind. A majority of the ATV manufacturers didn’t take development of four-wheelers seriously until 1988 when, after a lengthy investigation by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, it was deemed distributors would no longer be allowed to market three-wheel ATVs and manufacturers had to repurchase any unsold three-wheel models from dealer inventory. […] More »

Meet Edgar; an important common link. The top two American ATV brands share both a common founder and founding state. Edgar Heeten formed Arctic Cat in 1960 in Thief River Falls, Minnesota and prior to that he was co-founder of Polaris Industries in Roseau, Minnesota around 1954. Edgar Hetteen, a farmer before heading off to […] More »