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A 1982 Honda ATC 250R reborn By the staff of Dirt Wheels, Photos by Joshua Elzey Restoration to Perfection. Honda invented the first high-performance ATV in 1981 with the introduction of the ATC 250R, and the racing industry has evolved ever since.  In more recent decades, Mike Palmgren of Vintage Motorsports Restorations (www.vintagemotorsports.net, (508) 303-5085) has been preserving and restoring Powersports machines with two, three, and four wheels. Over the last few years we have…

HONDA VS. POLARIS:  Performance meets supreme comfort By the staff of Dirt Wheels HONDA TALON VS. POLARIS GENERAL At first glance, a comparison between a sport machine like Honda’s Talon 1000X-4 and a sports recreation model like the Polaris General XP 4 Deluxe might seem somewhat odd and perhaps even ill-advised. But, as we looked a little closer, it started to look like a natural comparison. Although it wasn’t one of the facets that prompted the comparison, both machines are new models for 2020. Certainly,…

A welcome Limited Edition for the General family By the staff of Dirt Wheel 2021 POLARIS GENERAL XP 1000 LE It is easy to be a fan of the Polaris General line. A basic premise is a machine with a body that can work atop a chassis that can play. Each version features a chassis not too dissimilar to the RZR 900 in design and suspension. With the 2020 introduction of the General XP 64-inch models with greater wheel travel, larger wheels, tires, and more features, it is even easier to find a General you like. We…

TRICK TRAX TEST The multi-time GNC Four-Stroke National Champ, Jeremy Schell, had just put together back-to-back champion­ships aboard his Laeger-chassied, TC Racing-modified four-stroke Honda. Unlike the football players who said they are going to Disneyland right after they won the Super Bowl, this 23-year-old Missouri youth de­clared he was heading out to California to ex­perience the sights and sounds of ATVing’s own Disneyland: the Glamis sand dunes. THE NEXT RAD BAD DUDE TRICK TRAX TEST…

By Joe Kosch The term “halo car” is well-known in the automotive world. It refers to a vehicle made to draw attention to a brand, usually with over-the-top performance, styling, technology, and features. These machines get people talking and cast the glow of an impressive performance image on all the vehicles in the lineup. Halo cars usually have enormous prices to go along with their incredible performance, and that only adds to their mystique. Usually, the absurd prices don’t come close to covering the true cost…

Living big and doing it all By the staff of Dirt Wheels According to Polaris, the Ranger is the best-selling UTV of all time.  The new POLARIS RANGER XP 1000 Trail Boss should, therefore, also be a best seller for Polaris as well. As easy as it seems to be for Polaris to sell Rangers, you might think the company could just take it easy. But, they don’t think so. Despite a complete redesign in 2018, for 2021, Polaris came up with a number of improvements for the Ranger XP 1000. In addition, a number of variants…

In this mornings 2021 product launch video that focused primarily on motorcycles, Kawasaki did let us know they have been working on electric & self driving  UTV's for the line. The company will announce a few new UTV’s on January 26th. We don’t think this new E or Ai tech will be available so quickly on production Kawasaki's , we do, on the the otherhand, think they will announce some sort of “Rideology” as they call it to several models. If this “Rideology is similar to Polaris Ride Command we will get excited. Stay…

4x4 WAR: HON vs. SUZ. The hot news so far in ’98 has been the two all-new, big-bore, four-wheel drives from Honda and Suzuki. Called the Honda Foreman 450S and the Suzuki QuadRunner 500, the two machines were only recently introduced to the press, with our first rides reported in our last two issues (DW Feb. ’98 and DW Mar. ). In the never-ending  4x4 War: Hon vs Suz. This issue marks the first time these ma­chines will do battle in a head-to-head shootout situation. The January Dirt Wheels featured a shootout…

Style and power for the 21st century By the staff of Dirt Wheels 2021 CFMOTO Z-FORCE 950 UTV When we contemplate sport UTVs, CF Moto hasn’t been our first thought.  But the new 2021 CFMOTO Z-FORCE 950 UTV,  has made us think twice. When we think about 4x4 quads and utility UTVs, CFMoto is solidly on the radar. Now that we have experienced the 2021 CF Moto Z-Force 950 Sport and Z-Force 800, the brand will be part of the new sport UTV lexicon. The company has staked out a certain area of the sports market, and…

QUADRACER REBUILD SUZ LT250 REBUILD In case you didn’t know it, the Su­zu­ki QuadRacer LT250R was the first high-performance ATV to ever hit our shores. That momentous occasion oc­curred in ’85. It was the first four-wheel­er to be seriously raced and it cer­tainly upped the ante in the trail riding/recreational world. Hon­da re­sponded with the FourTrax 250R, Ka­wa­saki came out with the Te­ca­te-4 and Yamaha’s Banshee all ap­peared in ’87, completing the Big Four’s dive in­to high-performance four-wheelers.…

Many new sport and high-performance quad models got their start in the bonanza year of ’87. Since then, on­ly a few more “just-for-fun” four-wheelers have come our way. Some, though, like the Yamaha Banshee 350 and Kawasaki Mojave 250, are still go­ing strong well past their ten-year anniversary. https://dirtwheelsmag.com/tag/kawasaki-mojave/ As far as Kawasaki goes, the Mojave has stood as its only sport or a high-performance machine for nearly that same amount of time (the two-stroke Tecate-4 250 was also offered…