1996 three for the trail
Amsnow
The Phazer started it. The Indy Trail capitalized on it. The Formula SL hopes to keep it going.
"It" is that special niche of snowmobiles that use fan-cooled motors but come with all the "right" features and a relatively low price tag.
In the case of the Polaris Indy Trail and Ski-Doo Formula SL, it will cost you at least another $600 to move into the world of liquid-cooled sleds. In the specific case of the Ski-Doo, when you pay the extra money for liquid-cooling, you lose out on a new long-travel suspension with 10 inches of maximum travel. As you can see, there are trade offs.
As usual, the Polaris at $4,199 is the lowest priced model in this class. When it comes to pricing, Polaris is king. But, for a change, Ski-Doo isn't far off the price curve at $4,399. That's despite the big differences in the Canadian versus U.S. dollar, which makes things Canadian a better buy for American snowmobilers than for Canadian snowmobilers. Yamaha suffers from a yen-to-dollar situation which can be seen in the $4,799 price tag on its Phazer II.
Once the best-selling snowmobiles in the world, the Phazer was upgraded to the Phazer II version, which retained the splendid 485cc fan-cooled twin and lightweight balance of its predecessor. The Phazer had a definite impact on snowmobiling as the other manufacturers attempted to copy it. The most obvious copy cat was Arctic with its original Prowler. That sled emulated
the handlebar-mounted fairing, but went to a lightweight liquid-cooled engine
in lieu of the Yamaha fan.
The current lightweight, sport-oriented, fan-cooled trail sleds are excellent
examples of the craft. They are relatively light in weight, the Phazer remaining
the lightweight leader at 403 pounds. They have relatively big displacement
fan-cooled twins at around 500cc. And they offer many of the same features
found in much more expensive liquid-cooled sleds for which you'd pay hundreds,if not thousands more. For value, these sporty, fan-cooled sleds are hard to beat. If we have to stick our necks out and name our favorites in order
of ascending preference, it would go like this.