What If Husqvarna Made A Vitpilen-Based Cruiser?

KTM and Husqvarna make a lot of things—especially on the dirt bike front—but cruisers aren’t one of them. But what if they did?

That’s the hypothesis the people at Rushlane decided to explore. Their designer came up with a render of what a cruiser-ized “Pilen” would look like. Its name? The Blapilen.

According to the designer, the Blapilen could be offered with a variety of engine displacement—just like the Viptilen and Svartpilen available in 401 and 701 variants in the U.S. Their opinion is that the Pierer Mobility group should seriously consider integrating the cruiser segment considering how popular it is. We can't say whether we agree or not. 

The designer used a similar tank design to the Vitpilen 401 but tilted the rear portion down to create a lower, more cruiser-like silhouette. He also replaced the single, central shock with a pair of side-mounted springs, and the wire-spoke wheels standard across the lineup with a pair of cast alloy wheels. The result is a bike that kind of looks like a cruiser injected with Husqvarna’s undeniably quirky DNA.

We doubt such a model is even in the cards for the Swedish maker but it’s always fun to extrapolate about what could be and imagine all the possible “what ifs”. The company might want to consider another color than Blue (Blå) for the name, however. Blapilen translates to Blue Arrow in Swedish—a name perfectly aligned with Husky’s arrow naming convention—Vitpilen means Silver Arrow Vitpilen and Svartpilen, Black Arrow.

Though Blå looks like the ideal continuation in the Pilen family, there’s something about it that doesn’t sound as easily marketable as Vitpilen and Svartpilen. We get it, it’s Swedish, but in English, “bla” has an intrinsic boring quality to it, despite Husqvarnas being everything but boring.

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How do you like the Blapilen? Do you think Husqvarna should consider entering the cruiser segment? We're on the fence. It feels like such a departure for the brand but then, who better than the Husky to make cruisers look cool? Any thoughts?

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