Just when you thought every conceivable corner of the middleweight streetbike landscape had been covered, along comes the Husqvarna Svartpilen 801. Part scrambler, part roadster, part commuter, part flat-tracker, part hi-tech hooligan and part eye-catching style statement, the Svartpilen gleefully refuses to slot into a single category.
Visually, there are plenty of nods to Husky's off-road heritage. There's the Pirelli MT 60 RS tyres, with their distinctive flat-track tread pattern. There's the wide, cross-braced handlebar. There's a single retro-style round headlight. And there's the high-rise exhaust, that silencer tucked up tight against the tail just like a dirt bike.
But the Svartpilen is no good-olddays rose-tinted throwback. Its lines and silhouette are modern to the point of bordering on sci-fi. That headlight is LED, as is all the bike's lighting. The dash is a colour TFT. Wheels are cast, brakes are radial, suspension is multi-adjustable - it's the chassis spec you'd expect of a cutting-edge streetfighter, not anything retro. At first it's hard to know what to make of it all.
Scratch beneath the surface and things feel more familiar. At its heart is a tightly packaged 799cc parallel twin with a completely contemporary design-four-valve heads, watercooling, ride-by-wire throttle. Its crankpins are separated by 75°, giving it the firing intervals, feel and sound of a narrow-angle V-twin. And if you think you've heard that all before, it's because the Svartpilen shares its engine with KTM's 790 Duke.
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