• Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Sweden - About 1988 and older

  • Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

Husky CR 500 Silverstreak

Guys,

Lets make it clear, I searched all over Europe to get hold of one of these babies so that I could race it. I eventually drove 2500 miles across 7 different countries to pick it up. I had only seen it in pictures that the previous owner had sent me, so you are never quite sure of the condition. When I saw it I could not believe how good and un-used it was.

This now puts me in a dilemma. I want to ride it, but I also don't want to destroy it given the condition of it. (anyone who has seen me ride will know that there is a good chance it will end up looking very second hand afterwards) There aren't that many of these Silver streaks about and I definitely haven't seen one in such un-molested condition.

So if i'm going to ride it, I would have to remove the majority of the parts that are 1. Difficult to come by or 2. Their value plummets if they are damaged. Like the original (un-restored fuel tank).

And what makes it even harder is that I have the 83 500 that is arguably a better frame geometry that the Streak with the same engine, that I don't really mind if I break it.

There....I'm still not sure what to do.....:confused:
 
Dang what a beautiful bike. I would drive it only when it is dry, on a flat easy terrain while keeping my speed lower than 30km per hour. Just out of fear of damaging that beauty. So I would probably just put it in my living room. :P
 
Do whatever makes you happy, if riding it and having fun on it floats your boat then do that, but if admiring it and spending hours with it in the lounge room then that's great too! It's your bike do what you want with it! I know what I'd do.
 
My thought is that you will never ride it as hard as you might have done back in the day, bring it out on special occasions and enjoy it...... just be cognoscente of situations as you are riding. It's much like a trophy wife, it needs to be brought out and showed off every once in a while to make the rest of us jealous!
 
your bike is rarer than my situation but i bought a NOS 1988 xc250 when i was in high school. (by the way, who does that?) i have been riding it ever since and i dont regret it. yeah it would be cool to still have it mint but i have gotten alot of great use out of it and look forward to getting more. i would ride it but carefully. build something else for all out racing.
 
I had a Montesa that was the same deal. It was on standard bore, painfully stock. I was careful riding it, but I raced the expert class, and did very well with it. It would pull modified Honda CR 250's. It held up so well, I rode it as stock as it came from the factory, and for two seasons! It still looks nice, but now it looks like a survivor, and every paint scratch reminds me of the corners, jumps, and straights this bike hauled ass on.

I thought of having a museum at one point, but I am not in a position for that right now, and these bikes don't seem to interest much of our young riders coming up. I would ride your Silver Streak, but probably get another gas tank, seat, and any other easily damaged part I would replace with good used just to keep the original look when you want it.
 
Paul P said:
I had a Montesa that was the same deal. It was on standard bore, painfully stock. I was careful riding it, but I raced the expert class, and did very well with it. It would pull modified Honda CR 250's. It held up so well, I rode it as stock as it came from the factory, and for two seasons! It still looks nice, but now it looks like a survivor, and every paint scratch reminds me of the corners, jumps, and straights this bike hauled ass on.

I thought of having a museum at one point, but I am not in a position for that right now, and these bikes don't seem to interest much of our young riders coming up. I would ride your Silver Streak, but probably get another gas tank, seat, and any other easily damaged part I would replace with good used just to keep the original look when you want it.
Click to expand...

a survivor! i like that..somewhere around 200 hours and 16 years later.Photo393.jpg
 
that's was what I thought as well....:)

get a later bike to thrash and bring the special out when its perfect conditions for the bike...
 
sounds like you already know but i would say keep this as a show pony and race the other stuff, show it off at events now and again and then retire it back to the pool/snooker room to be talked about and admired for what it is a piece of motorcycle history and a thing of beauty in original condition but only invite friends over who are into motorbikes or you may get some knob head criticise it and then before you know it your on a manslaughter charge.
 
Little different situation, but I'll put in my 2 cents even if it leaves me bankrupt. My 70 Husky 400 was purchased by my Dad new, they were so popular at the time that it took months to get, as I recall. After sitting for years I finally refurbished it, not a full restoration, but a very nice rider quality redo. I parked it for several years and admired it, it brought back many memories. At first I had decided not to race it in Vintage classes fearing I would damage something original to the bike. In the end, I am now racing it and having a blast. Different handlebars and the original fuel tank safely stored away. The conclusion I came to was that few other people would ever appreciate the heritage behind the machine the way I do and I'm using it for its intended purpose. Someday, when I myself am "too vintage to race", it will get a full restoration, but for now...
I hope that there will be a younger (than me) generation of riders who develop an appreciation for these fine motorcycles.
I'd probably ride it.
On the other hand, I have a 500 Milk Truck like yours, and if I had both it and a Silverstreak... :thinking:
 
I don't think we've made your decision any easier... but we just have to know. You going to ride it, park it and preserve it? Whatever you do, glad you got yourself a Silverstreak, very cool, wish I had one.

Or you could build it into a Supermoto, hehehe. :excuseme:
 
I would ride for sure. First just for your own enjoyment. Second just think of all the folks who get to hear and see it run.

Share your passion. Remember paint is easy to repair. Get a rider tank paint it the same color and save the original tank on the shelf

Oh you know its better to run that engine now and then anyway.
 
Have had and raced 2 of them in last 10-15 years....beautys no doubt...I actually found the 6spd XC to be a better race bike...easier to ride and that motor is just so dang good. Liked my '83 500CR as well but to me, at least, the '84 CR500 just turned so much better especially when put '83 250CR tank on it. Tried a '80 390CR tank on the Silver and liked the feel much better....Great bikes all of them
 
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