Pretty sure Yamaha was a legend in the snowmobile biz well before the Delta box. Probably as far back as the GP643 triple, if that sled didn’t do it the 1977 SRX 440 liquid did.
I owned a 1985 SRV 540 ....fastest sled of its time. Then there were the Vmax quad 750 & 800’s that ruled the wasteland. In 2000 the SRX 700 took sled of the year in several mags and even the 800’s were scared. Then the Viper with handling that rivals sleds to this day on smoother trails.
I miss those days when Yamaha had new offerings ever couple of years and a wide selection of models.
The agreement between Cat and Yamaha has been love/hate but it still has given me an awsome sled! If it was a perfect sled I would have nothing to do all summer and would have to move to the North Pole so I could ride 365 days a year. Might get eaten by polar bears, and my house would probably sink into the ocean due to global warming. So it ain’t all bad.