I gotta say, I highly suspect my next bike will not be a Yamaha. In fact, my herd of Yamahas has thinned out....my Blaster is gone, and now my Warrior sled is gone too...Max is the only one left.
And the thing is I like Yamahas....I still think they build some of the best, more durable engines out there, and build quality (fit, finish, ect) is top notch on new machines. Especially snowmobiles. Problem is, Yamaha doesn't make a current motorcycle I would want to own. Crotch rockets aren't my thing. Neither are big cruisers. So I've got the FZ line....the FZ6 is weak sauce, the FZ1 is too uncomfortable and incredibly dated, with a motor that's just so-so. The all-new FZ8 was a step in the right direction, a modern sport/naked with a reasonable pricetag....seem them many places for under $8k brand new. They're pretty fast, much better than the 6 and IMO on-par with the dated FZ1. But the Z1000 just did everything the FZ8 did, and did it better. More comfortable. Better handling. More power everywhere. Cooler exhaust sound(and that intake howl....w00t!). Overall it just felt easier to handle, I hopped on and felt "at home" almost instantly, where the FZ8 still felt kind of like a sportbike.
Sorry Yamaha....you're recent offerings just aren't up to par. Your quads are all dated as hell too....that 700 single(formerly 660) has been going round robin for what, like 10 years now in a market where everyone else is using twins? The sideXside market is moving toward the sport-buggy with the Commander, RZR, and now the Wildcat...the Rhino is still strictly utilitarian, a farm vehicle. Your sleds are finally getting suspensions that don't suck ass, just in time for the price to go through the roof. The "flagship" Warrior in '05 was a tick under $10k, now the flagship Apex is pushing $16k or more.
Unless something else comes out to give the Zed-1 competition, Kawi will get my dollar. Which is a bit of a shame, since that's the bike the gen-2 should have been. A sweet muscle standard without the '80s handling, without carbs, and without bias tires, for right around $10-11k retail. A true successor to the Vmax name, that will live for years and be remembered as fondly as the original. But it won't be. It's too different, it shed the history and memories of the orignal. If that 1198 came back with a few tweaks, some injectors, and a sleek look, everyone would still recognize it as that bike they remember from their youth. Sure, it's evolved, but still what it always was, king of the stoplight.
People see a gen 2 and go "what's that?" or "looks like something from Transformers". Not "hey, is that a vmax? my buddy has one a while ago, told me his insurance company banned him from riding it", or some other nostalgia.
