simond
03-13-2010, 04:16 PM
It seemed like they came out of nowhere. One day we got a call from U.S. Highland and some guys from Oklahoma announced they had an American-made ATV with some very impressive performance numbers. Within a few weeks, we had one to test.
U.S. Highland didn’t spring into being overnight. The story begins almost 20 years ago with a Swedish company called Folan. In the years after Husqvarna motorcycles was purchased by Italians and moved out of Sweden, a handful of former engineers started on a new project. The result was a V-motor that was light and made crazy horsepower. The history after that gets so complicated that we couldn’t begin follow it. Cannondale, ATK and a new company called Highland were all involved. But the bottom line is that now the tooling for the V-twin motor as well as a single-cylinder version is in Oklahoma where they are preparing to produce a line of ATVs and motorcycles. The single-cylinder motor will be available in a variety of configurations, depending on what the customer wants. It can be a 450 with mild output or a 70-horsepower 507. It is a six-speed with EFI and a very complicated electronic brain that keeps track of every rpm that the motor turns from the first time it’s started. It even has a G-meter that remembers how hard it landed from each jump
Full Article http://www.dirtwheelsmag.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=E048967E606F41EBA1A9BCF9D605CB5C&nm=Latest+News&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=EF1E7275A01745AAA41D9793FCF25626 Full Article (http://www.dirtwheelsmag.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=E048967E606F41EBA1A9BCF9D605CB5C&nm=Latest+News&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=EF1E7275A01745AAA41D9793FCF25626) http://www.dirtwheelsmag.com/Media/News/PC152047.jpg
U.S. Highland didn’t spring into being overnight. The story begins almost 20 years ago with a Swedish company called Folan. In the years after Husqvarna motorcycles was purchased by Italians and moved out of Sweden, a handful of former engineers started on a new project. The result was a V-motor that was light and made crazy horsepower. The history after that gets so complicated that we couldn’t begin follow it. Cannondale, ATK and a new company called Highland were all involved. But the bottom line is that now the tooling for the V-twin motor as well as a single-cylinder version is in Oklahoma where they are preparing to produce a line of ATVs and motorcycles. The single-cylinder motor will be available in a variety of configurations, depending on what the customer wants. It can be a 450 with mild output or a 70-horsepower 507. It is a six-speed with EFI and a very complicated electronic brain that keeps track of every rpm that the motor turns from the first time it’s started. It even has a G-meter that remembers how hard it landed from each jump
Full Article http://www.dirtwheelsmag.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=E048967E606F41EBA1A9BCF9D605CB5C&nm=Latest+News&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=EF1E7275A01745AAA41D9793FCF25626 Full Article (http://www.dirtwheelsmag.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=E048967E606F41EBA1A9BCF9D605CB5C&nm=Latest+News&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=EF1E7275A01745AAA41D9793FCF25626) http://www.dirtwheelsmag.com/Media/News/PC152047.jpg