https://snowgoer.com/latest-news/yamaha-will-exit-the-snowmobile-market…
They'll be calling it quits for the snowmobile market after 57 years.
They partnered up with Arctic Cat in 2014 and 2025 will be the last year for the Yamaha lineup.
2024 will be the last year for the Yamaha lineup for the European market.
No word yet on how long Yamaha is obligated to continue supplying engines for Textron/Artic Cat.
I don't have a long history with Yamaha on the snowmobile side of things, but my first snowmobile ride as a kid was on an old Yamaha GP 440. My old man raced ovals on Yamaha's before we were born.
Got into MX riding Yamaha's and I still like the BluCru to this day.
Bummer, but I’m not surprised. When they collaborated with Arctic Cat back in 2014 I felt their future was shaky in the sled world. The snowmobile market is so thin even compared to moto, which is another small fish in the sports world.
Yamaha stopped making snowmobiles a long time ago. Now they are not going to make anymore snowmobile engines or at least not sell any snowmobiles. Yamaha always made great snowmobiles and engines.
It seems like winters just aren't as long as they once were. Snowmobile season is so short it's hardly worth it. At least that is how it has been here in New England.
The start of the end was 1999 when the first RX-1 prototype showed up in Coon Rapids, MN. Yamaha declared the Viper 3 cyl 2S single pipe would be the last 2S they ever develop. This was the start of the end. They contemplated getting out of sleds back in 2004, but it was decided getting out was going to be too expensive..The partnership with Cat helped them get on that path.
The sled division and engine division are separate and so you may see the Yamaha engines still in Cats after ‘25 or even more likely Polaris in the future..
The Shop
Grew up on snoscoots and snowsports before graduating to a Phazer. The OG snoscoot/sport should never have been discontinued. Worth gold now
That will suck, will never forget the ET 250, 300, Phazer 485 from the 1980's when I was a kid. Light years ahead of competition back then. Yamaha owned it until about 2000.
I'll bet Larry Enticer is in tears right now!
Southern New England no longer even gets winter, out of the snowbelt.
In Minnesota we've been experiencing 6 months of winter and 6 months of poor snowmobiling.
That sucks. Absolutely loved my Viper 700. I used to sled quite a bit, logged thousands of miles in the U.P. of Michigan.
Just kept getting harder to organize rides due to different schedules with buddies. And some years it wasn’t easy to find good snow.
My cousins that are in michigan by red bud sold all of their snowmobiles several years ago because they were getting little snow.
Originally the Viper was supposed to be released in 2001 with the mono skid and unequal length front end. However The mono skid would self destruct itself and the front was tippy. So that was scrapped and held up release until 2002. Went back to the sx700 specs.
The proto and pre-prod units had around 125-127 HP and ripped. Production ended up under 120 hp (115 to 117 if I recall).
The viper was originally designed with a ram air system that could be opened and closed. Except the linkage would freeze up and snow dust would clog up the air box foam. So then it was changed to just dump air on either side of the air box.
Those RX 1 tons were so heavy if you got it stuck you were better off coming back for it in the spring time.
My buddy had the single pipe version SRX? Or SXR? Anyway on groomed trails there was nothing better ,it ripped and handled like an F1 car, unfortunately any rough trails would swallow it up .
Yamaha snowmobiles were great everywhere except in the mountains deep powder. Have had 6 or 8 Yamahas but switched to Polaris so I wasn't always stuck all the time.
The first year RX-1 was 604 lbs dry…a tank. By 2005 they were down to 589 lbs due to some magnesium parts, mono skid..etc.
Below was the first RX-1 mnt sled. Yes heavy, but once you slapped a turbo on them you could out-climb anything in the mountains. Having had one of the first mnt turbos we would come upon groups of guys chipping away at a hill. I’d take the Rx1 turbo and blow past their high mark going 50 mph…
yeah, that ain't no shit. we rode past a group of guys digging one out of being stuck as hell one time, it was about noon. at the end of the day on our way back to the truck they were gone and that fatass sled was still stuck there. i would have just dropped a match in the tank and called in the insurance lol
My buddy rolled his into a ditch at a road crossing and we ended up calling someone with a pick up truck to pull it out haha
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