After several months of on-the-job testing, we found out just how many times we really do! Anytime we might have reached for a wheel barrow, or the tractor, or even the pickup to haul one small item somewhere, we instead found ourselves heading for the Polaris keys. We had it on the farm, in the woods, and at the construction site where contractors were drooling.

The ATP is a unique concept - a blend of ATV and true utility features, that makes it quite a work horse. And for it's size, it's also surprisingly agile, so it found it's way easily on a trail ride or two as well.

The molded dump bed and front storage compartment are key design features to the ATP - it gives it essentially the bed of a pickup and a secure trunk of a car. The front storage compartment even has a drain plug, so you can dump ice directly in it or drain it easily if unwanted things spill. While not huge, we found it roomy enough to keep three people's snacks, drinks, first aid kit and tools dry and dust-free on a long day's ride. It will hold up to 90 lbs, if you want to fill it up and then strap more on top as well. An open rack has it's advantages at times, but it's nice to be able to get some things in and protected. Another advantage to the somewhat smaller size than we've had on some utilities and slightly tilted mounting, is that you can actually see over it, keeping an eye on trail obstacles (and small dogs) directly in front of you.

Load it up, dump it out. This baby can haul up to 400 pounds in the dump bed (250 pounds for the smaller 330cc version). Just remember that the "dump" part is manual - you will have to lift it to tilt it and pour out the contents. The tailgate opens however, and it's still way easier than manually unloading all those rocks one by one.

The tool the whole family can use! "Grandpa Keith" is a hard-core horse man - you weren't going to get him on any of those new-fangled four-wheelers. However, when he realized how much effort it would be to unhook the hay equipment currently attached to the tractor, just to hook up to the harrow for an hour drag job in the near pasture, he was willing to give it a try. The ATP let him get across irrigation lines a tractor would have damaged, and right up against the wood rail fence. When it was time to haul salt out to the mules, we caught him sneaking out to get the Polaris.

While the pickup bed is an ideal size and configuration for hauling multiple small items, large bulky items such as bales of hay really don't work as well as they would on an open-rack system.

	Other features we really like on the ATP include the engine braking, the quick-response of the 500cc motor, and the easy-shifting lever. We expect the VersaTrac and Spicer gears will be a great long-wearing set up, and the Titan AT489 tires provide great traction right out the door.
While we do like the idea of a built-in receiver style hitch, we would have preferred a 2" receiver instead of the 1" as it comes. We weren't wanting to haul any heavier loads than warranted by the small hitch, but there are many farm implements that come based on a 2" receiver attachment.	We also thought the "turf" mode quite ingenious - it allows for the unlocking of the inner-most drive tire with the push of a button, so if you are turning tightly on lawn, it will not chew up the ground and actually allows 20% tighter turns.

While we noted a couple things we feel are weaknesses in design or lacking features, we think it important to point out it is not because these things were glaring in their faults - it's because we have used this quad quite heavily, probably more than most we generally test, and so began to see small things more clearly. These are things you wouldn't notice when shopping, but would make you say "Shoot! I wish it had..." later on. They are not issue enough that would make us a regret the purchase.

Of course we wish the dump was hydraulic. Would we be willing to pay another $500 - $800 to have them put that in? Probably not. Do we wish we could haul several bales of hay easily? Sure. But then we couldn't haul 6 buckets of grain with an edge on the bed that prevented them from spilling. For $3,000 more, we could buy the six-wheeled Polaris Ranger side-by-side and have a bed nearly as large as a pickup, but we wouldn't be getting through any narrow trails with it or doing any zipping around on our off days.

So we'll give the ATP a thumbs up - available in a 330cc for $5,999 or 500cc for $6,999, expect it to pick up jobs your other larger and more expensive vehicles have been slaving over. It definitely provides more workability than most ATV's out there. Even the very popular Polaris 500 Sportsman will run you $6,599 ($6,899 if you want mossy oak), so what the heck, you might as well pick up the versatile All Terrain Pickup while you're at it!