Yep, that's how manufacturing in Huskvarna (as the town's name is now spelled) got started, with a rifle factory. It's one of those brand names that started out as one thing, branched into a bunch of others, then the divisions got spun off or sold to other companies and took the name with them into different industries. Sort of the same way that the Rolls-Royce that makes jet engines doesn't have anything to do with the Rolls-Royce that makes cars (actually part of BMW nowadays).

Today it looks like there are at least four separate companies using the Husqvarna brand in different industries: one that makes sewing machines, the original lawnmowers-and-chainsaws outfit, an Austrian company that makes motorcycles, and Electrolux, which used to own the whole shebang and still uses the brand name for some of its home appliances. Oddly enough, about the only small machines that aren't made under the Husqvarna name any longer are firearms.

My dad used to know a guy who had a Husqvarna dirt bike when I was a kid. (Dad was a Honda Enduro man himself in those days.)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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