Description
The sport of snowmobiling in the late 1960’s was exploding in North America and Yamaha was not content to watch this market from the sidelines. Yamaha had extensive manufacturing capabilities with its motorcycle line and snowmobiles seemed like a likely candidate to fill production in the off-season while capitalizing on their current motorsport knowledge.
Yamaha entered the snowmobile marketplace in 1968 after several years of research and prototyping in the Japan deserts. Through this research came the first Yamaha snowmobile, the SL350, of which only 300 were produced. Yamaha quickly made improvements to this model in 1969 and by 1973 they were fully entrenched in the battle for market share. By 1978 Yamaha was in the fore-front of technological advances and was aiming to be the number one selling snowmobile in the United States.
By the start of the 1980’s Yamaha had become the market share leader and throughout the entire decade the competition could only watch as Yamaha knocked out one market category after another.
From the Lake Rocket SRX’s, Vmaxes, and Exciters, to the most indestructible Enticer line-up, and the industries number one selling snowmobile the Phazer, quality, performance and excitement kept Yamaha in the fore-front of the snowmobile industry. The 1990’s brought innovation to snowmobiling through the Vmax-4, the industries first four cylinder performance snowmobile. Class leading rear suspension of the 1996 Vmax XT, and the incredibly light 1997 Vmax 700 SX, added industry leading features to the snowmobile industry. In addition, the decade would be finished out with the new SRX700 Triple Triple Triple with power exhaust valves which made the competition have to continue to rethink their snowmobiles.
The last decade of this book, 2000-2008, highlights the advances of key snowmobiles such as the SRX and Viper and ultimately the birth of the 2003 RX-1 Four Stroke Yamaha snowmobile – The future of snowmobiling and culminating with the 40th Anniversary issued Apex’s and class leading FX Nytro triple cylinder Four Stroke.
