What's The Difference Between An ATC & ATV?

The terms ATC and ATV are often confused with each other, which is what tends to happen when similar products have similar spellings as well, like macarons and macaroons. An ATC is an All-Terrain Cycle and an ATV is an All-Terrain Vehicle, and while the ATC only has three wheels, the more generally termed ATV has numerous configurations. You're more likely to find ATVs on the road than an ATC, but there's a reason for that: ATCs were a precursor to the modern All-Terrain Vehicle, with sales and safety concerns keeping it from becoming the dominant style, not that people didn't love driving them.

According to the ATV Safety Blog, while there were earlier versions of the All-Terrain Cycle (ATC) like the Canadian Jiger, the ATC is most closely linked with Honda's introduction of it in 1970. It was a three-wheeled vehicle with fat, low-pressure tires meant to traverse nearly any surface, like mud, snow, and sand. The Honda US90 had a seven horsepower engine, and became popular with farmers and for recreational use, making cameos in "Diamonds are Forever" and "Magnum P.I." Honda helped secure their place in this history by trademarking the term All-Terrain Cycle for vehicles of this type. But that trademark, as well as the vehicle itself, are not much in use anymore, ever since the fourth wheel came along.

As the market grew, a need for greater utility in such vehicles necessitated adding a fourth wheel. Suzuki introduced the four-wheeled QuadRunner 125 in 1982, and Honda introduced the TRX200 in 1984. People zoomed around on three-wheel and four-wheel ATVs across the country, but they also crashed a bit as well, prompting an investigation by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), according to Honda. While the findings linked many of the accidents to improper rider behavior, and not necessarily any design flaw in either of the ATC or ATV, the ATC wound up taking a hit. The ATCs were seen as less stable and more prone to tipping over, especially with kids and adolescents at the helm.

Sales were already declining for the ATC, and in 1988, U.S. ATV distributors signed a 10-year agreement with the CPSC to expand safety awareness programs, and no longer market three-wheel ATVs. It was essentially the end for the All-Terrain Cycle, and both the All-Terrain Vehicle and the term itself came to represent many types of off-road vehicles with various wheel configurations, like four, and even six. Just rarely three.