The world is changing!

This just in...
Yamaha has announced that it plans to withdraw from the snowmobile segment by 2025. The 2024 model year will be the final for available production in the European market, while North America’s final production will be the 2025 model year.
Over the past 55 years, Yamaha developed snowmobiles for sports, leisure, and business use as a means of transportation, mainly in snowy areas found in North America and Europe. Yamaha also aimed to grow the business through the early introduction of environmentally-friendly 4-stroke models and alliances with other companies. However, the company says it has been a challenge to reach a sustainable business model in the snowmobile market.

Going forward, Yamaha says it will concentrate management resources on current business activities and new growth markets.

According to Bryan Hudgin, director of marketing and brand development for Yamaha Canada, Yamaha Japan made this decision to focus on high-volume product groups and increase investment in identified growth markets. "When it comes to a global scale, it’s something that Yamaha Motor Corporation is looking at constantly - whether or not the volume there that is required and the growth in the market - and if the industry is big enough to continue. [Yamaha] has decided to focus more attention on current industries where we’ve got more success and invest in identified growth markets."

 

Can't blame them. Sleds don't sell when we've had year after year of shitty no snow winters.

 

Yamaha sleds have been seen less over the past 20 years. I never thought they were as capable as the other three manufactures. They are just odd....their owners manual will say to turn the gas valve off when not in use, but that same sled won't even have a gas valve installed. They always had a good engine.

 

Uhhh…



Didn’t you bozos get like a 6 FOOT snowstorm last winter?

 

Didn't those engines end up in several other uses like arctic cat or one of those amphibious vehicles I was seeing

 

I’m pretty sure my friends in Alaska and the UP in the sled dog community had nearly record snow.

 

Alta Ski Area had 900+" of snow.
Previous record was 748".

It was a pretty decent snow year out this way.

 

Buffalo did, I'm no where near there. Actually what's been happening is we get decent snow and then a week later it's 40 degrees and raining and we lose it all. The Xmas blizzard we got this year that I was posting about when it was happening gave us good snow, a week later we lost it all.

 

But the middle of the country and New England haven't been. Can only sell so many sleds to the Eskimos.

 

They sell 4 stroke motors to Artic Cat

 

If you add in the others snowmobile sales keep shrinking year after year.

 

I guess just like bike sales over here versus before 08?

I just got back from Italy for family vacation and it is amazing how many bikes and scooters are running around. When we went to Bellagio on Lake Cumo, it was a very curvy narrow road and there were bikes everywhere. Lots of male/female on one bike touring the country.

Was really nice to see.

Our guide in Cinque Terra, pretty 38 yr old Italian woman, said she often rides her scooter to work and around town because it is so much easier.

pictures below of Cinque Terra which means 5 villages.
https://www.google.com/search?q=chi...3mAEAoAEBwAEByAEI&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp

 

I'd love to own a sled, I miss it from when I was a kid... but the weather hasn't been consistent enough to justify the cost. Hell, we never even got proper ice for ice riding this year.

 

The local ski hill used to have enough snow, or cold to make snow, for most of the winter when I was a kid. Could ski any day of the week between December and March. I don't remember any time in the last five years they had usable snow for more than a week.

 

What the world
Needs now,
Is more side by sides
No not for just some
Oh, but just for everyone. /s

 

Funny story

I learned to ski on a landfill that was converted into a ski hill by a small township owned by the township.

Same thing there.....they only had 30 usable ski days a year.....ended up being a massive loss to the town.

 

in return for cat supplying them with the chassis, body work. yamaha hasnt really made their own full units, in 10 years. even the current yamaha 2 stroke sleds are fully cat (motor and chassis), except the clutching, for the most part.

northern climes still get decent snow, it just starts later, and stays later. on march 17th, most areas north of the 45th parallel received 2 feet of snow, in 24 hours or less, and then the lake effect machine kicked in. we were riding on April 15th, and had a freak snow in may, that was rideable. you just need to commit to the riding area. you can embrace winter, or hate it... the snow is coming either way. Ski

 

Slednecks are a different breed, for sure. Those dudes are a passionate about their three weeks of glory here in the mitten. And, a large portion of them hate UTVs on their trails during the warmer months, so I can get down with that.

 

Can relate to absolutely nothing in this thread.

 

Mount Trashmore. Been there, done that.