Husqvarna

KTM-based Husqvarna Svartpilen 801 By Ben Purvis

It's been nearly a decade since Husqvarna - then freshly bought from BMW ownership into the KTM family by Stefan Pierer - showed its first modern Svartpilen and Vitpilen concept bikes. They've since become a mainstay of the brand in a variety of sizes, all using engines and frames borrowed from KTM's Duke range.

With the Svartpilen 801, Husqvarna's neo-retro street scrambler enters a new market segment by becoming the first two-cylinder bike in the Svartpilen line. 

The formula is unchanged. As with previous Svartpilen models in the modern era, Husqvarna has plucked a model from the KTM range - in this instance the 790 Duke - and wrapped it in distinctive styling including the signature oversized, circular headlight to create a bike with a very different appeal to the angular Duke it's based on. On previous Svartpilen and Vitpilen models (the Vitpilen being a more street-biased, café racer-style version of the same styling theme), Husqvarna's tweaks to the riding position - with new tanks, seats, bars and pegs - have given them distinctly different characters to the KTMs they're based on, and the Svartpilen 801 is likely to be no exception.

The engine is the 799 cc version of KTM's LC8c parallel twin, as used in the 790 Duke and 790 Adventure. KTM has also created 889 cc '890' variants and, for 2024, introduced a completely redesigned '990' twin, but Husqvarna is sticking with the tried and tested original. It's putting out 77 kW (103 hp) at 9,250 rpm and 87 Nm (64 lb-ft) at 8,000 rpm, exactly matching the current 790 Duke, which was reintroduced by KTM last year in Chinese-made form as a lower-cost alternative to the new 990 Duke.

The engine might be shared, but the Svartpilen has higher-spec suspension and equipment than the 790 Duke. Its forks are fully adjustable WP Apex 43 mm upside-down units similar to those on the 890 Duke R, paired with a compression and preload-adjustable rear shock, and there's a WP steering damper to tame the front end. The brakes, meanwhile, are the same J.Juan four-piston front calipers used by KTM, but wearing Husqvarna branding. Like KTM's Duke models, there's cornering ABS from Bosch with a switchable Supermoto mode that allows the rear wheel to be intentionally skidded. An 'Easy Shift' bidirectional quickshifter is standard, too, along with up to four riding modes. 

Without fuel, the Svartpilen 801 comes in at 181 kg. Pricing sits it directly between the Chinese-made 790 Duke and the new, much faster 990 Duke, making it a direct rival to Ducati's Scrambler Icon and Full Throttle models, though with a substantial performance advantage.­