HONDA’S NEW 2018 SPORT UTV?

Many of us remember Honda’s Pilot 400 from 1990 and we wouldn’t mind seeing its return, based on the popularity of today’s single-seater Polaris Ace. Well, that dream may not be as far-fetched after all. Instead of being powered by the original two-stroke engine though, it’s more likely to be a 1000cc twin-cylinder four-stroke.

Honda registered the trademark name of “Talon” in the UTV category and the Dirt Wheels crew speculates that to mean performance UTV. Why? Well, little chirpy birds don’t have vicious claws. Only the baddest predatory birds have sharp talons. While the more utility type Honda UTVs have the standard wing logo, it makes sense for the high-performance version to have a talon logo.

There’s no word from Honda yet that a Talon UTV is coming, but we wouldn’t count out an announcement in another couple of months. The only question we have at this point is if it’ll be a single-seater or two-seater. The Pioneer 1000 engine does indeed have good power that translates into quicker acceleration than most people realize. It wouldn’t need too many tweaks to be suitable for the Talon as well. It seems as though Honda was waiting to gauge the success of Yamaha’s YXZ1000R before they committed to going in that direction too. Well, we suspect the waiting will soon be over, so stay tuned.