Something that bodes well for dealerships and powersports manufacturers that carry UTVs and products is the fact that many consumers of these vehicles opt to upgrade and customize the vehicles later down the road. There’s so many different aftermarket options available for the big name OEM side-by-sides that make for tons of unique builds.
In order to market their vehicles as something that can be drastically customized and altered to fit the needs and personality of the driver, OEMs will often build concept vehicles that show this first hand. We see them all the time at trade shows and other powersports events – this year we found a pretty sweet Yamaha concept side-by-side at the AIMEXpo.
“The RMAX 1000 is one of our recreational side-by-sides that we’ve had for a few years now,” said Scott Newby of Yamaha. “It has a 1,000cc parallel-twin engine in it and has our D-Mode, so all sorts of technology all the way around. It’s a great platform that our customers can use to do some off-roading and adventuring.”
To meet the varying demands of drivers and terrain, Yamaha’s D-Mode optimizes the RMAX 1000’s full engine power, adjusting throttle response and engine braking to provide three distinct power-delivery options: Crawl, Trail and Sport
That makes it perfect for racing events like King of the Hammers, which Yamaha’s off-road division campaigns it at.
“We have a mixture of Yamaha accessories like the over fender and skid plate and so forth, but we also wanted to show people that it’s a very capable platform and you can do more with it than in stock form. We have integrated rollover protection structures (ROPS) in the back, and even on the four-seater. We took out the back seats and actually have storage underneath where the foot compartment was before so now there’s even more space.”
“We have a Yamaha generator in the back and some chainsaws since we were in Colorado at 10,000 ft. elevation and gas powered chainsaws wouldn’t work for us.”
“The greatest thing about these recreational side-by-sides is that they are so versatile. The RMAX2 1000 actually has a full size dump bed on it, which you’re not going to see on a lot of these crossover type side-by-sides.”
The AdventuRMAX concept side-by-side has a host of other upgrades to boot as well, including custom side panels, a custom spare tire carrier, Yamaha GEnuine aluminum A-arm protection, Yamaha Genuine rock sliders, GBC Terra Master tires, a WARN AXON winch with synthetic cable, Method Racing 401 beadlock wheels, and a Rigid 40-inch Adapt E-Series light bar and pod lights.
If you have a motorcycle, ATV, UTV, snowmobile or jet ski you’d like to feature in MPN’s Ride of the Week series, please email MPN Content Director Greg Jones at [email protected].
