Debut of Bavarian Husky

Ok, am I the only one in the world confused by this? It is being labeled as a hybrid and they even renamed the World Enduro Championship team to reflect the cross over between the two companies, hybrid or evil step child?

So lets see, they are going to use the BMW 450x motor and put it into a Husky frame. Admittedly it is an all new frame. Now while the Husky motor has been considered a pretty decent unit, I can’t recall hearing much praise for the Beemer. In fact it has some real issues, like the clutch that is driven directly off the crank and then there is the countershaft that doubles as the swingarm pivot. The later concept might have seemed forward thinking on the 1974 Can-am, but really now.

side view of Husky

You know those Germans get pretty stubborn when their ideas don’t pan out just right. They get even worse when having to deal with the Italians. This was witnessed in relationship with Aprillia on building the original F650 models.  When the Germans came to campaign Baja a few years back on the HP2 twin, they wanted no part of being told that the only way to be competitive was to use

Juha shows off new "Hybrid" ride

a F650 based single. They actually thought the HP2 could be a contender.

I can’t help but wonder if this is just another case of having so much time an effort into the BMW 450, that they are desperate to salvage something out of it. If the same time and resources were spent redesigning the 450 Husky, it might be a championship winning bike.