Amazing how close in form these were to current rider forward platform! I have a pair long tracked with a 4" riser on the handle bars and equivalent of airframe boards and they rock. Goes back to an old post re why Yamaha didn't move forward with a tube chassis - a lot of adults have ridden and beat on the Sports / Scoots and they held up for over 20 years! A slightly bigger Sport frame with the phazer motor + decent track and shocks would likely be very close to if not just under the 400 lb mark!
Have to wonder what the "engineers" at Yamaha do all day - two years to stuff a nytro motor in a Cat ... no big deal ... guys on here & TY have stuffed the same motor into pro rmk chassis (without the benefit of the R&D / development budget of Yamaha corporate). I say fire the current lot of R&D and go and find the crew from the 90's!
I have a feeling that when the worlds economy took a downturn a few years ago, Yamaha decided to put their resources and engineers in to more profit generating products like bikes, scooters, generators and such. I mean lets face it, sled sales were going to slow down anyway.
Many auto manufacturers did the same thing and a couple of them even went bankrupt. The Aisian auto manufacturers cancelled models and made the most of what they had.
There has recently(last 3 years) been an explosion of new automobiles hitting the market as the big companies are getting there feet beneath them again.
The sled market is not much different except it is a small portion of what a company like Yamaha would sell in the big picture. It looked like Yamaha thought the economy was bouncing back well enough that they wanted to get serious about sleds again. They realized that in order to do something in short order that hooking up with an Amercan company instantly brought them a plant and quick distribution of products to key markets.
The relationship with AC was born out of convenience for both companies. In my opinion it won't turn in to much more than we have seen so far, but who knows.
There is likely a working agreement between AC and Yamaha which limits Yamahas position to be competitive in similar markets, and that is why there is no mountain chassis, or maybe it was not viewed as relative enough for Yamaha to pursue it. Either way it's all speculation, and none of us really know what the deal is.
If I was making odds, I wouldn't bet against Yamaha making some big gains in market share over the next few years.
Many of us can't see past next week, let alone 5-10 years down the road...and that is where these big companies have to plan for.
This is just my opinion of course.
