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2014 Yamaha Viking
700 SxS Links |
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Ten Sleep, WY - In 2003, Yamaha
changed the face of the performance SxS vehicles
with the release of the Yamaha Rhino 660, which
quickly grabbed the attention of off-road enthusiast,
hunters, and farmers. As sales exploded for the
Yamaha Rhino, many other OEMs quickly released
rival SxS / UTV models, and just over ten years
later, there is a full range of Side-by-Side off-road
vehicles for consumers to select from to meet
their individual needs.
After eleven years of production, the Yamaha
Rhino was retired from the Yamaha line-up for
2014 with the release of the Yamaha Viking 700
SxS, which is larger and more powerful and versatile
than its predecessor, the Yamaha Rhino.
The engineers at Yamaha took all the features
that made the Rhino so popular over the past
decade and expanded on them to make the Yamaha
Viking the perfect replacement for the Rhino.
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2013
Yamaha Rhino 700 SxS |
2014
Yamaha Viking 700 SxS |
While many competing manufacturers are going
for high speed, high performance, UTV’s, which
also come with a high price tag, Yamaha has
created a niche for itself in providing an affordable
multi-passenger, multi-purpose genre of Side-by-Side
with the 2014 Yamaha Viking 700 SxS.
We first learned about the three-seater Yamaha
Viking this summer and were quite curious to
see what a true three-seater had to offer. We
were skeptical yet excited at the same time
when we were invited to Wyoming to test drive
the Yamaha Viking for ourselves. We wondered
if it could really be comfortable with three
bucket seats, if it performed well and how sturdy
would it be? We would eventually find out that
the 2014 Yamaha Viking delivered on all counts.
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Ten Sleep, Wyoming
was our destination for the 2014 Yamaha
Viking 700 SxS, which is home to the Big
Horn National Forest |
Red Reflet Ranch in Ten Sleep, Wyoming was
our destination for this test drive. It seemed
like sort of an odd name for a ranch, but it
all made perfect sense once we arrived at our
destination. “Reflet” is the French word for
“reflection” and with the red rock hills reflecting
in several of the ponds on the property; it
seemed to be a perfect name for ranch nestled
along the Big Horn National Forest.
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2014 Yamaha Viking SxS parked along the
ridge line of the Red Reflet Ranch |
The Red Reflet Ranch sits on 27,000+ acres
just south of Tensleep, WY. The ranch is surrounded
by beautiful red rock mountains with sweeping
views and if you are lucky you can catch a glimpse
of the abundant wild life, including herds of
elk and deer. There are plenty of activities,
including hunting, fishing, hiking, horseback
riding, and even zip lining. Besides being a
recreational retreat, Red Reflet is also a working
cattle ranch, which made it the perfect place
to test out the new three seated, multi-purpose
2014 Yamaha Viking UTV.
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At sunset, it becomes obvious how the
Red Reflet Ranch got its name with the
red rocks cliffs glowing and reflecting
in the ponds below |
