Yamaha IMTEC98 Coverage

Yamaha
IMTEC98

Yamaha Marine Group President Phil Dyskow announced a new 2.6 liter High Pressure Direct Injection engine to be available in late 1999 for Model Year 2000. We were asked to report this in trade media only - not in consumer media. He also announced the building of a new combined R&D Facility on the water at Bridgeport (Alabama?) that would include the ATV group.

The Yamaha Watercraft group press conference focused on their new LS2000 jet boat and the WaveRunner SUV 1200 PWC, the first sport utility PWC.

LS2000
The LS2000 is a very sharp looking craft. At 270 HP it joins the new category of high horsepower sport jets. The styling is very appealing. The "batmobile looking" wind deflectors blended well with the rear view mirrors for a very distinctive look. Power is supplied by dual 135 HP three-cylinder Yamaha engines.

I noticed the craft was reviewed in the Oct. 98 issue of Boating (pgs.98-100). They mention the deflectors I thought looked cool protected the driver and front seat passenger from the wind, but it was pretty breezy in the back.

Congratulations to Yamaha for this very stylish new craft!.

WaveRunner SUV1200
Wow! Is this thing big or what! It looks like a stretched limo. The literature shows it in a 4-up mode with what looks like mom and pop bookending a teenage girl and pre-teen boy with lots of room to spare.

It is 151.6 inches (over 12 and 1/2 feet) long and 59.5 inches wide. A 135 HP three-cylinder Yamaha engine provides power for its 660 pounds payload. It comes with several storage compartments, including some that will store a full size water ski or wakeboard. They made a big deal of calling it the industry's first Sport Utility Vehicle.

Congratulations to Yamaha for testing the waters in this new category. Due to its size and storage capacity I expect it will find some niches that have not yet been recognized. I'm very happy to see some firms in the industry are still willing to try new things and wish them the best.

Yamaha Booth

Translation Glitch

Just as American builders take their engines and crafts to foreign countries and say strange things or make cultural mistakes, Yamaha did something I found "odd." An American gentleman was reading the specs for both units (LS2000 and SUV1200) at the press conference and he provided the storage capacities of the various compartments and total storage of the units in gallons! We are used to talking about storage space in vans and 4 wheelers in cubic feet. It seemed as if they had calculated storage space in liters and Americanized the number to gallons.

Even the spec sheets are that way. I have a little trouble imagining the amount of gear I can store in the 116.75 gallons of storage space available on the SUV. Yamaha has some very fine craft here - they might wish to make sure the specs fits the audience a little better next time.

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