rewind bng when old news is the only news

Over a lifetime immersed in powersports stuff like snowmobiles, ATVs and motorcycles, one tends to become privy to some of the industry lingo and clichés that float around.

For instance, a "birthday bike," whether referring to an actual bike or a sled, is a unit that has hung around a dealership sales floor for over a year. "Paying juice" means the dealer is paying interest on a unit and wants to get rid of it. Most powersports speak is fairly proprietary, and some sayings exist to make the best of a bad situation.

One such saying happens to be my favorite powersports cliché. It started in the boardrooms of our favorite companies and worked its way through the entire sport. Even the press uses the term. "Bold new graphics," a euphemism for "no real changes whatsoever." Some who would mock this description simply refer to it as BNG.

The concept behind BNG is that when a certain model has either become so popular, or so long in the tooth that it doesn't warrant a mechanical change, manufacturers will milk it and simply change the color or the decals. Then at the press showing, convention or consumer show the aging model is rolled out with much fanfare and the deep-voiced announcer informs us that the XYZ 2000 is "back in 2007 with bold new graphics."

Where cheers are supposed to erupt, sympathetic applause and snickers fill the hall.

Mentioning BNG around a group of dealers will usually illicit a few chortles and some wisecracks. BNG sort of reminds me of the term "flair" in the movie Office Space. A few years after I watched Office Space, I ate at a TGI Fridays and asked the server where her flair was. She informed me that TGI Fridays quietly dropped flair in most of its establishments after Office Space became so popular.

Not the powersports business, it proudly continues to roll out "bold new graphics" with the same zest and vigor that existed 20 years ago.

So, in the spirit of designers and product managers everywhere, I have decided to give the BNG Award to the top sled models that brought us good times, good memories and bold new graphics year after year after year.

To be fair, I left out the utility sleds because, let's face it, if the Yamaha VK540 or the Ski-Doo Alpine had flat black hoods and no decals they'd still sell to whomever was interested. This list is reserved for the models we waited for each year with bated breath, only to heave out that breath in a sigh as the graphics changed from pink to purple, but everything else stayed exactly the same.

Bringing up the rear, the Polaris Indy Trail. Introduced in 1983, this baby has seen more color changes than an Andy Warhol creation. Maroon, grey and green are just a few of the hues to grace the hood of this venerable 488cc fan cooled performer. And decals? Polaris' marketers threw every shape, color and pattern of vinyl at us that they could, and we appreciated it. Yeah, yeah I know they moved a few vents around on the hood back in the late '80s, but it's the graphics that kept us coming back, right?

I could pick on this company a lot, but I won't because the model that ranks No. 3 just happens to be one the best-selling snowmobiles of all time, the original Yamaha Phazer. 1984 saw this wicked, little space-aged trail rocket thrust upon the snowmobiling community in brilliant silver. From there, the folks in Hammatsu gave us a regular rotation of red, black and brown, and aside from a little frame stretching and a roman numeral two, not much else changed for the entire 14-year run of this unit.

Then, just when all hope seemed lost, the Phazer came back last season with bold new everything!

These last two were tough, but I have to give the runner up nod to my first sled, the Ski-Doo Elan. Could a corporation possibly milk a model any more than this? This thing hung around longer than your mother-in-law.

Bogie wheels, check. Engine in your lap, check. Steel tunnel, check. The Elan could have single-handedly kept Tillotson Carburetor in business! Other than a few '70s looking rally stripes, Bombardier didn't get fancy with this gem until the hood turned black, then we were treated to a wild assortment of graphics that almost made us forget we were taming a 250cc sled designed in 1970.

Finally, ranking No. 1, the easy choice is Arctic Cat's Kitty Cat. I'm pretty sure Arctic Cat subcontracted Santa's elves in the off-season back in 1971 and just cranked out 10 million of these honeys. They were stored in a warehouse somewhere near the Northwest Territories waiting for the application of bold new graphics.

The original idea behind the Kitty Cat was for the spawn to look just like mom or dad, but this concept kind of hit the shoulder of the road when dad was packing an El Tigre 6000, and the young lad still looked like he was on a shrunken '72 Cheetah. It seems the new 120 kids' model from Arctic Cat is picking up where KC left off, but we'll all have to wait a few more years (quite a few more) for the Z, ahem, F120 to knock the Kitty Cat off the all-time BNG throne.