Dear ATVC: I have a question related to the ATV industry. Have ATVs always had thumb throttles? Did the early ATVs have twist grip throttles? I was wondering when thumb throttles came to be and why? dbj216 Believe it or not, the very first ATV to be manufactured using motorcycle controls (unlike earlier ATVs, which […] More »

When your name becomes the name. Polaris is a pretty popular ATV manufacturer both in the United States and all over the world. Just how so? To the point where in many countries, particularly those around the Middle East, actually refer to all ATVs as a “Polaris” much in the way Americans call a photocopy […] 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 »

Let the sky be your guide. The first ATV to come with integrated GPS navigation from the factory was from Honda over 10-years ago. The 2004 FourTrax Rancher AT GPSCAPE recognized the value of global positioning and probably couldn’t have predicted a few years later that nearly everyone of us would have GPS tracking in […] 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 »