Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126032
The dawn of a ne -~ e il} motorcycling ~' ,- - - --- - - - - - By J im Gianatsis Wi th the in trod uction of a four-speed automatic transmission dirt bike, Husqvarna has entered a new phase of motorcycling, one that's perhaps as significant as the advent of long travel suspension. The fact that a comparatively small Swedish dirt bike company beat the big Japanese corporations to the punch is totally amazing, especially when the simplicity of Husky's design is co rnpared to the complicated fluid torque converter type designs found on Japanese drawing boards. Most of t he credit fo r H usky's The new Husky 360 Automatic (above), with a few excep tions, is cradled in a chassis that's the same as those on the GP bikes. The most obvious differences are the free wheeling lever on the left handlebar (below, leftl and the full width front hub (below, rightl. Plus, you don 't get a shift lever. ------ • automatic goes to one of their engineers, a tall lanky Swede named Lars Eric, who p io nee red the design a number of years back and continued with its development as kind of a pet project. The first working prototype of the a utomatic was a 250cc 3-speed which was debu ted at the American IS DT in 1973. That first bike worked well, but needed another gear and more po we r to upgrade its performance. The n e x t p rototype step produced the fo ur-speed gearbox and a 360cc top end. O ver the following two years, Lars Eric continued to develop the m achi ne while riding it to wins each year in Swe den's tough two-day winter e nduro . While H usky is the first manufacturer to introduce a true automatic transmission bike, Rokon must be given credit for their variable d rive machine which has been available for two years now. Ro kon uses a 340cc Sachs snowmobile engine wi th a variable belt drive torque converter form of transmission. The Rokon's biggest advantage is that its drive ratio varies to suit traction, engine speed and acceleration to form the "ideal" automatic drive. The bike falls short, though, in that the powe rp lan t was never specifically designed for motorcycle use and that the too heavy frame was never known for its handling abilities. H usqvarna's 360 WR Automatic is al ready an acknowledged performe r. The frame and suspension components are from the existing GP models, used also on the 1976 WR six -speed manual transmission H uskys . The 360cc reed valved powerp lant is also identical to t:'41: in the 360 CP and WR tri~=:. Other than the four-speed automatic gearbox and an additional two po und increase in weight fro m the aluminum (rather t han m agnesiu m ) engine cases, the Automatic is just like all other Huskys. Dick Burleson has already won a number enduros and hare scrambles with the A utomatic, and will use it this year to d ef e n d his National E::duro Championship , How it works so you don't 18 Essen tially, the Husky Automatic sports a four-s peed gearbox with each gea r having its own centrifugal clutch. A centrifugal clutch is a very simple device which looks like brake shoes in a brake dru m. The "brake shoes" spin around o n a shaft, an d as RPM increases, the