With the mega-watt intro of the new Viper Series of Yamahas floating around in the ether, the floodlights are definitely not aiming at the rest of the Yamaha 2014 line-up.
The truth is, Yamaha has made one very significant change to all of its Apex, Vector, Venture and Phazer offerings by adding its revolutionary twin carbide “Tuner Skis” to each of those models.
These skis were used on the Nytro last year with big success and it’s pretty much a no-brainer the company would put them on everything for 2014. Supertrax has tested these skis on both the Apex and the Nytro and they are quite frankly, amazing.
With so many Viper models covering the bases in a multitude of segments you’re probably surprised Yamaha did not delete more of its established models.
There’s very little alteration in these offerings and it should be interesting to see how the established Yamaha models compete with the new Vipers – not the least of which will be the Nytro going head-to-head with the Viper RTX.
In fact, even the stalwart Vector will likely be somewhat overshadowed by the trail-targeted SR Viper as well. These sleds all use the same 130-hp 4-stroke triple and we can’t wait to compare the results between them on the snow.
Two areas the Viper will not intrude on will be the 162-hp hyper-category Apex and its variants and the Phazer.
The Phazer GT has been eliminated from the product menu but with the exception of the addition of Tuner skis, the rest of the Yamaha model line-up remains intact and pretty much unchanged from 2013.
