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Thanks for the quick response. I too looked, and could only find the AC patent for the Alpha One prototype. So it may be their design. Yamaha has a similar patent on the rounded skid, which allowed similar roll, but support for a trail sled. It also showed articulating skis for angles and cornering like a bike. That was used in the new Yamaha three wheeled motorcycle.

I don't think a flex edge, or narrow skid is needed in a trail sled. For the same reason i'ts not overly fun to ride a narrow mountain sled on trails
 
Joe ltx-le said:
are we really still comparing these sleds to the fit and finish of a all Yamaha sled.
Those days are over. we now have a great handling chasis with poor quality fit. im on my third yamacat and adjusted very well
Click to expand...

Well, no matter what product a company makes, there has to be that product or a company that will be last in sales. One of the first signs you can look for in trying to predict what company or product will be in last place is fit and finish. Its a great indicator of the required attention to detail absolutely necessary if you are manufacturing complex machines. Enjoy your winter and cheers to many trouble free miles!
 
I Will just say the term "hybrid frame":yam:
 
Humor me on this little conspiracy theory. It may or may not be off base.

It's 2010-2012, you are an executive in Yamaha business development crossing over multiple platforms around the world. And you are responsible for providing products to a dealer network for all seasons. You see the writing on the wall that the snowmobile business, as a whole, is declining in participants, and warming trends are shrinking the geographies that can use this technology.

You have a Yamaha dealer network that is anticipating a refresh to the tried and true Apex line as well as waiting on something new. But they realize this is a complimentary good to get them through the winter months. As their bread and butter products are the motorcycles, ATV, marine engines, and possibly watercraft, namely boats and waverunners.

A decision has to be made on if more R&D is put into a new platform or you concentrate on being an engine supplier. As then the responsibility of selling stock is on the engine buyer and not your dealer network. The goal, in fact, is to keep the dealer network happy. Two options are out there. We stop production cold turkey, or we give them some small revisions and start cleaning out dealer stock and MFG stock of components.

You then work out how many years of Bold New Graphics you can milk out of this revised apex in 2011. Keep the dealers happy, but also allow them the time to start looking at taking on another line for the snow business. Obviously maintaining the relationship with dealers and customers so that Yamaha is not dropped for the products where they lead in, and make the most money.

In that same time, one option is to help promote the best engine buyer (Arctic Cat) by cross branding some sleds, so that they can truly offer a new sled in 2014 that will give the dealers something to sell while they transition. To further this relationship, they work with Arctic Cat to offer a co-designed sled in 2017, which they realize should have been done the first time rather than shoe-horn a current engine into an existing chassis.

This whole time, production of Yamaha designed chassis has all but halted, and the final version is released as spring order only model in for 2019. The writing is now on the wall for the dealers. And yamaha has not lost them for all the other business. If they had stopped back in 2012 or 2014, the dealers may have been overwhelmed by the decision and jumped ship altogether. Now, they may have taken on AC, Polaris or BRP as their sled provider like so many have. Or dropped winter products.

This may be Yamaha's very long way of saying, yup, we maybe should not have gone 100% four stroke back in the early 2000's. But we are not gonna lose our #*$&@ over it. being an engine supplier is the best way to still make money. And they will probably do better than to get back into it again. This also allowed the dealers time to transition slowly. Offering up the AC built sled with Yamaha graphics is a band-aid for those that have not taken on another sled line.

I could very well be wrong. But CR didn't explain his departure other than a much needed retirement. But I bet he saw this coming, and with no new Yamaha designed sleds coming, one can lose their passion for the business side of it. There is literally no business reason for Yamaha to come up with something truly Yamaha. The dealers have to see this as well.
 
Well reading the investors report for 2017 they still are bragging they build the only full build sleds on the market..I would have to bet they would not say such if there not going to consider doing such!
 
Turtle said:
UGH! If we end up with a cat chassis and a cat 2-stroke engine with Yamaha stickers - what's the point of buying the Yamaha? Just because of the color? I'd love to see a new Yamaha 2-stroke in a competitive chassis of their own. But I think we all know that's extremely unlikely to happen. It may have been a poor decision on Yamaha's part to go strictly all 4-stroke, and backing off on the EPA regulations didn't really help. But it was also a poor decision on their part to have 3 unique chassis for 3 engines, each with their own unique suspension (Phazer, Nytro and Apex/Vector). The effort and cost to maintain and improve those is mind boggling. Yamaha still moves too slowly as a corporation, and I've been waiting too many years. Unfortunately my confidence gets weaker every year I continue to wait. Unfortunately my patience is only going to last about 4-5 more months. It will be at that time that I'll be deciding to stay or not. Until then, I'll try my best to keep the fire going.
Click to expand...
biffdotorg said:
Humor me on this little conspiracy theory. It may or may not be off base.

It's 2010-2012, you are an executive in Yamaha business development crossing over multiple platforms around the world. And you are responsible for providing products to a dealer network for all seasons. You see the writing on the wall that the snowmobile business, as a whole, is declining in participants, and warming trends are shrinking the geographies that can use this technology.

You have a Yamaha dealer network that is anticipating a refresh to the tried and true Apex line as well as waiting on something new. But they realize this is a complimentary good to get them through the winter months. As their bread and butter products are the motorcycles, ATV, marine engines, and possibly watercraft, namely boats and waverunners.

A decision has to be made on if more R&D is put into a new platform or you concentrate on being an engine supplier. As then the responsibility of selling stock is on the engine buyer and not your dealer network. The goal, in fact, is to keep the dealer network happy. Two options are out there. We stop production cold turkey, or we give them some small revisions and start cleaning out dealer stock and MFG stock of components.

You then work out how many years of Bold New Graphics you can milk out of this revised apex in 2011. Keep the dealers happy, but also allow them the time to start looking at taking on another line for the snow business. Obviously maintaining the relationship with dealers and customers so that Yamaha is not dropped for the products where they lead in, and make the most money.

In that same time, one option is to help promote the best engine buyer (Arctic Cat) by cross branding some sleds, so that they can truly offer a new sled in 2014 that will give the dealers something to sell while they transition. To further this relationship, they work with Arctic Cat to offer a co-designed sled in 2017, which they realize should have been done the first time rather than shoe-horn a current engine into an existing chassis.

This whole time, production of Yamaha designed chassis has all but halted, and the final version is released as spring order only model in for 2019. The writing is now on the wall for the dealers. And yamaha has not lost them for all the other business. If they had stopped back in 2012 or 2014, the dealers may have been overwhelmed by the decision and jumped ship altogether. Now, they may have taken on AC, Polaris or BRP as their sled provider like so many have. Or dropped winter products.

This may be Yamaha's very long way of saying, yup, we maybe should not have gone 100% four stroke back in the early 2000's. But we are not gonna lose our #*$&@ over it. being an engine supplier is the best way to still make money. And they will probably do better than to get back into it again. This also allowed the dealers time to transition slowly. Offering up the AC built sled with Yamaha graphics is a band-aid for those that have not taken on another sled line.

I could very well be wrong. But CR didn't explain his departure other than a much needed retirement. But I bet he saw this coming, and with no new Yamaha designed sleds coming, one can lose their passion for the business side of it. There is literally no business reason for Yamaha to come up with something truly Yamaha. The dealers have to see this as well.
Click to expand...

That's solid thinking IMO for what that's worth!! I'm just glad that other sled manufactures don't think and act the way Yamaha did. Could you imagine where the industry would be without Ski-Doo introducing the Rev chassis, or Yamaha not introducing high-performance 4-Strokes? We could give lots of examples of innovations from all manufactures that advanced the sleds to where we are today. For some reason Yamaha was the only manufacture that stopped sled R&D somewhere around 2008. Two manufactures gained market share, one more or less just was treading water until bought by Textron, and the other needed a partnership with one to survive. I don't think its any mystery, but the two companies that invested in their own company and spent money and resources on R&D are the ones leading in sales.
 
biffdotorg said:
Humor me on this little conspiracy theory. It may or may not be off base.

It's 2010-2012, you are an executive in Yamaha business development crossing over multiple platforms around the world. And you are responsible for providing products to a dealer network for all seasons. You see the writing on the wall that the snowmobile business, as a whole, is declining in participants, and warming trends are shrinking the geographies that can use this technology.

You have a Yamaha dealer network that is anticipating a refresh to the tried and true Apex line as well as waiting on something new. But they realize this is a complimentary good to get them through the winter months. As their bread and butter products are the motorcycles, ATV, marine engines, and possibly watercraft, namely boats and waverunners.

A decision has to be made on if more R&D is put into a new platform or you concentrate on being an engine supplier. As then the responsibility of selling stock is on the engine buyer and not your dealer network. The goal, in fact, is to keep the dealer network happy. Two options are out there. We stop production cold turkey, or we give them some small revisions and start cleaning out dealer stock and MFG stock of components.

You then work out how many years of Bold New Graphics you can milk out of this revised apex in 2011. Keep the dealers happy, but also allow them the time to start looking at taking on another line for the snow business. Obviously maintaining the relationship with dealers and customers so that Yamaha is not dropped for the products where they lead in, and make the most money.

In that same time, one option is to help promote the best engine buyer (Arctic Cat) by cross branding some sleds, so that they can truly offer a new sled in 2014 that will give the dealers something to sell while they transition. To further this relationship, they work with Arctic Cat to offer a co-designed sled in 2017, which they realize should have been done the first time rather than shoe-horn a current engine into an existing chassis.

This whole time, production of Yamaha designed chassis has all but halted, and the final version is released as spring order only model in for 2019. The writing is now on the wall for the dealers. And yamaha has not lost them for all the other business. If they had stopped back in 2012 or 2014, the dealers may have been overwhelmed by the decision and jumped ship altogether. Now, they may have taken on AC, Polaris or BRP as their sled provider like so many have. Or dropped winter products.

This may be Yamaha's very long way of saying, yup, we maybe should not have gone 100% four stroke back in the early 2000's. But we are not gonna lose our #*$&@ over it. being an engine supplier is the best way to still make money. And they will probably do better than to get back into it again. This also allowed the dealers time to transition slowly. Offering up the AC built sled with Yamaha graphics is a band-aid for those that have not taken on another sled line.

I could very well be wrong. But CR didn't explain his departure other than a much needed retirement. But I bet he saw this coming, and with no new Yamaha designed sleds coming, one can lose their passion for the business side of it. There is literally no business reason for Yamaha to come up with something truly Yamaha. The dealers have to see this as well.
Click to expand...


Entertaining theory, but I am not convinced that it is accurate.

I may be a "drowning man" holding on to the last vestiges of hope to keep me afloat, but Yamaha has done three things that tell me they intend to remain in the snowmobile business:

1. The Sidewinder/Thundercat - Development of that engine and platform was unnecessary if Yamaha was just performing assisted suicide for its snowmobile dealers. They could have "ridden" the Viper platform through 2019 without introducing the Sidewinder. The Sidewinder was "new" and "exciting" enough to make a lot of people want one, and to even make some 2-strokers switch over to 4-stroke. To me, that says that Yamaha still wants snowmobilers to still think of them as a sled builder.
2. The reintroduction of the 2019 SRX must have had a purpose other than just selling a few more Sidewinders, especially since it was spring order only. Again, my guess is that the design and the concept were intended to get people "excited" about Yamaha producing the fasted sled on snow, and to a limited degree, it worked. If they are at the end of the road, building the SRX would just have been a "sentimental" exercise, and I don't think Corporate Yamaha lets sentimentality affect its business decisions.
3. The reintroduction of the Snow Scoot, and then upgrading it again this year with electric start, was totally unnecessary for Yamaha's current bottom line, but it was necessary for snowmobiling as a sport. One of the local dealers seemed pretty excited that he was able to score a couple of Scoots to have in stock. With a young grandson who is quickly outgrowing his 120 cc sled, there will be a Scoot in our future. Again, my guess is that the Scoot was due to Yamaha's recognition of the fact that the kids of today are their customers of tomorrow.

So, I may be way off base, but I have to believe that Yamaha isn't ready to give up yet. My hope is that 2020 reveals a brave new plan, and that Yamaha is more than just AC's engine supplier.
 
I agree with those points as well WannaViper. Very good points indeed.

AC needed a replacement for the Suzuki engines. And that was their middle of the road sled in the NA1100 and Top of the line 1100 Turbo. So the use of the 1049 filled that gap on the low end while development of the 998 and 998T was in the works. The 9000 series with 998T more than filled that gap. And Yamaha was able to take advantage of that R&D with different colored plastics and graphics. Same goes for the 120 and snoscoot. It filled two line ups. Keep in mind, the 120 was the first AC/Yamaha coop product before even the viper.

As for the 998, AC/Textron's use of it in the Wildcat XX also solidifies the money Yamaha spent creating it for their YXZ platform. Even better yet, that is is, for the most part, the same engine used in sledding with modifications.

The SRX is a nod to a legendary nameplate. Although many of us SRX owners were insulted that it was not pure Yamaha. I think most of us will get over it.

Our jaded image of what has happened and is happening will not change due to the blue in our blood. But business says otherwise.
 
Yamaha & Arctic cat coming out with 3 all new sleds in 2020 , tells me Yamaha isn't getting out of snowmobiles . I would be more inclined to think the chances A/C being out is much higher... And with arctic cats focus on 2 strokes sleds still , u can guess there is a high chance that Yamaha will be making a motor for them , with Yamaha being able to sell sleds & production in North America makes it a good deal for both companies. Especially if the cat 800 is 20 hp down from the Polaris 850 already , they need help ....lol
 
Like most, I was also insulted with the SRX. To through together a what looks like a last minute sled and put the legendary SRX sticker on it is very insulting. I would have though that if they have plans to get back into the 2s business they would have saved that name for it, and maybe they are.

This version of the SRX could be just smoke and mirrors for the real 2020 SRX model:sled1:
 
Let's go over what we have learned here:

1. Some believe there could be a CAT 2-smoke in a CAT chassis called a Yamaha...................that would be embarrassing
2. Some believe there could be a Yamaha 2-smoke in a CAT chassis........................................they are high
3. Some believe that Yamaha would build a new chassis & put a CAT 2-smoke in it................they are on CRACK!
4. SASQUATCH uses a lot of exclamation points when he gets mad
 
At the Milwaukee snow show I did my usual prying to get something out of the rep for the future. This rep and I go back a ways. I never get anything out of him most of the time. This year I asked him if I would be smiling and he gave me an answer, right away in fact! He said with a smile on his face, George we are in it for the long haul!
 
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