SEPT 23--NEW HONDA SPORT QUAD?

While Honda did not announce a new sport ATV at their annual 2003 dealer show in Chicago we do know that they are hard at work on a replacement to the 400EX sport quad. To say the least, there are a lot of unhappy Honda ATV dealers out there. Competition is better than it has ever been, especially in the sport and high-performance markets, with a steady stream of new and improved models from Suzuki, Yamaha, Polaris, Cannondale, Bombardier, and Kawasaki now readily available.

Honda is under assault in virtually every ATV category and the company has seriously lagged behind the other major ATV manufacturers with little in the way of new, exciting and competitive products, especially in the sport ATV category. The rumors we have heard, are that Honda was all set to release a new CRF450 high-performance quad at this year's dealer show in Chicago, but it was nixed at the last minute when upper management felt that it would seriously cut into sales of existing warehouses full of 400EX's.

Maybe, once Honda blows out the older 400EX's, we can look for some really new and competitive performance quads from Big Red. Will we see the new CRF450 sometime late in 2003? We certainly hope so.