UTV Driver
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What are the BEST Sport side-by-sides on sale right now? We run down our list of favorites, from the Mighty Can-Am Maverick R to the stalwart Kawasaki KRX. Where does YOUR rig rank?

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Transcript
00:00 Welcome back to UTV Driver.
00:01 We are talking our favorite sport rigs.
00:04 - Woo!
00:05 - This is where all the fun's at, right?
00:06 We, yeah, utility rigs, they're all fun and games,
00:09 but you want 200, you want 200 horsepower.
00:12 You want acres of suspension travel.
00:15 - Two feet of it, in fact.
00:16 - Two feet of it.
00:17 - You want 30s from the factory.
00:18 - That's what we're here for.
00:19 - We want rock crawling.
00:20 - We want rock crawling.
00:21 - We want yumps.
00:21 We want to go yumping.
00:22 And with that in mind, let's kick off the list.
00:24 Zach, what's number one?
00:26 - Look, man, no surprise here, the Maverick car.
00:28 - The Dan M. Maverick car, holy crap.
00:30 This thing did things to my brain
00:33 that probably aren't safe for a family show.
00:35 - Why don't you try?
00:36 - UTVs are great in the desert in general, right?
00:40 You know, anytime you've got something
00:41 with big floppy bits out front and all the rest of that.
00:44 But we're used to that coming with some compromises.
00:47 - Right.
00:48 - Specifically in the handling department.
00:49 - They roll over.
00:50 - Well, yeah.
00:51 - Or like it's easy enough.
00:53 - They're tippy, right?
00:53 The Maverick does not have that problem.
00:55 - Really?
00:56 - It handles like a proper sports car
00:59 that just happens to have 200 horsepower,
01:01 all wheel drive, a locker in the rear,
01:03 and a big funky crab suspension thing out front.
01:06 - Yeah, tell me what the lobster claws are.
01:09 Why, what that for?
01:10 - Can-Am realized that they were having a really hard time
01:13 increasing wheel travel and maintaining a low roll center.
01:16 A low roll center basically keeps the vehicle planted.
01:20 So they came up with this,
01:21 this what they call the tall knuckle,
01:23 which is the sort of crabby bits that stick out.
01:27 - Right.
01:28 - And that's what helps keep the roll center
01:29 where you want it to be.
01:31 And it makes an honest to God difference.
01:33 And you know, it's hard to pick an angle
01:36 to talk about this machine.
01:37 It's got a crap ton of power out of a reworked Rotex.
01:41 It's got a dual clutch transmission that is spectacular.
01:46 It's got a fancy 10 inch screen inside.
01:49 It's just, it's a really, really proper machine.
01:52 And I've said this a million times,
01:53 it's moved the sport game forward in a very serious way.
01:56 - And there's plenty of evidence to back that up too.
01:58 We talked to Mint 400 winner, Dustin Jones.
02:00 He went out and won the Silver State 300 this year
02:03 in an almost stock Maverick R.
02:04 It was the rig's first time out.
02:06 Not only did he win the UTV Open class,
02:09 he won the whole race in a UTV.
02:11 It was the first time a UTV has won a desert race overall.
02:14 We talked to him a little bit later.
02:15 And one of the things he told us was,
02:17 before we used to try and convince ourselves
02:19 we weren't racing souped up golf carts,
02:21 but then he got into this thing and realized,
02:23 oh, we're racing cars now.
02:24 And one of the key things he said was,
02:25 we're no longer racing against belt temps
02:28 because of that geared transmission.
02:29 He was telling stories about running past
02:32 a competitor's machine and he could hear them
02:34 backing off the throttle to keep the belt temps down.
02:36 He just kept that pedal welded to the firewall
02:39 a hundred miles an hour across the desert.
02:40 And again, they revalved the shocks.
02:42 They reinforced a couple of things,
02:44 but it was the stock rollover system.
02:46 It was a stock machine.
02:47 It was a stock rig, 240 horsepower.
02:50 They just can't be a number one aside from that.
02:52 - Yeah, and you know, all of that doesn't come
02:54 at the cost of reliability.
02:55 You know, we beat the snot out of these things
02:59 over 200 miles over the course of two days.
03:02 And we had some flat tires from, you know,
03:05 idiots like me, but otherwise the thing just kept rocking.
03:09 - Well, and it's worth noting that Rotax
03:10 has been building high performance power sports engines
03:14 since who laid the rail.
03:15 They know what they're doing.
03:16 They've got their head screwed on straight.
03:18 So they've taken a lot of lessons from the Maverick X3,
03:20 which is a similar architecture engine
03:22 and figured out how to make it beefier.
03:23 And they put it in the Maverick R.
03:25 - Yeah, and obviously if you want to know more,
03:26 we've got a bunch of videos.
03:28 Buyer's guides over at the website.
03:29 It'll tell you everything you want to know
03:31 about this machine.
03:32 We've written about it ad nauseum
03:34 because we're just stoked on it.
03:35 It's good.
03:36 - Yep, and look out for more from us on the Maverick R.
03:39 That leads us to number two.
03:40 - Speaking of R's.
03:41 - Yes, speaking of R's, we'll add more R's to this list.
03:44 Number two is the Polaris Razor Pro R,
03:46 and we should say it's a close second.
03:48 - I think I said in my write-up that like,
03:50 if you already had a Pro R,
03:52 you're probably not going to sell it to go buy a Maverick R.
03:54 - There's no reason to, right?
03:55 - There's no reason.
03:56 - Such a good machine.
03:57 - It's such a fantastic.
03:58 - Right out of the box.
03:59 - We talked about side-by-sides, naturally tippy handling.
04:02 The Pro R doesn't do that either.
04:03 It has the dampers are dialed
04:05 and it's got nice long rear trailing arms.
04:08 So it's really stable.
04:09 You can put it into a slide
04:10 and feel like you can sit there all day long.
04:13 Until the Maverick R came out,
04:15 the Pro R was head, shoulders, and neck
04:17 above everything else on the market.
04:19 And really the only drawbacks still are the rubber belt.
04:22 - That's really the only thing
04:23 that bumps it down to number two,
04:25 is the fact that you're still stuck with a CVT,
04:27 which, hey, you know, a lot of people still like a CVT,
04:29 tried and true, you've known it forever,
04:31 changing a belt isn't the end of the world.
04:33 - No, and desert racers will tell you that by this point,
04:35 they've been racing with rubber belts long enough
04:37 that they've got a pretty good idea
04:39 how to keep the belt temperatures down.
04:40 It is something to note,
04:42 but also it's something that the industry
04:45 has dealt with pretty handily.
04:46 And if you're into like luxury and comfort
04:49 and bringing passengers with you,
04:50 the Maverick R doesn't let you bring two extra passengers.
04:53 There's a Pro R4, you can throw your family in the back.
04:56 We ripped one of those at Glamis and man.
04:58 - Well, and you've got plenty of power and torque, right?
05:00 You've got a big two liter, four cylinder.
05:02 It's the biggest engine of any side-by-side out there.
05:05 The thing is an absolute hauss.
05:06 It's a proven engine.
05:07 They yanked it right out of the slingshot
05:09 and that thing has hundreds of thousands of miles
05:12 on it out in the wild.
05:13 And it's just a good power train.
05:14 - It's worth noting that it's naturally aspirated.
05:16 So you get that exciting sports car throttle response.
05:19 And let's face it, if you take a thousand CC motor
05:22 and cram enough air down it through a turbo
05:24 to make it make 240 horsepower, you're adding heat,
05:26 you're adding cylinder pressure.
05:28 You are adding variables that will shorten the life
05:31 of the engine, no matter which way you cut it.
05:33 And you don't necessarily have those issues
05:35 with a naturally aspirated power plant.
05:37 So really number one and number two
05:39 are very close together on this list.
05:40 We love both of them.
05:41 - Wow, we want to spend more time in each one.
05:43 - Yeah, absolutely.
05:44 Before we go any farther,
05:45 be sure to like, comment and subscribe.
05:47 That'll mean you get to see our videos
05:49 as soon as they come out.
05:51 Let's get back at it.
05:52 Polaris has taken number three too with the Turbo R.
05:55 - Which is--
05:56 - Spicy.
05:57 - Yeah, another great machine.
05:59 Again, if you don't need all the horsepower and torque
06:01 of a 225 horsepower four cylinder in the Pro R,
06:04 get you a Turbo R.
06:05 For one thing, it's fun for a turbo to spool up.
06:08 And you know, that engine is characterful.
06:10 If you live in an area where there are regulations
06:13 that limit the type of engine you can have in your UTV,
06:16 the Turbo R is not far behind the Pro R
06:18 in terms of performance.
06:19 - No, it's really not.
06:20 It's 180 horsepower.
06:21 It's still got the CVT.
06:22 - Only 180 horsepower.
06:24 - Yeah, as much as a Honda Civic Si.
06:27 I mean, or a Mazda Miata, right?
06:29 Like we're talking about proper amounts of horsepower.
06:32 And if you think you can't scare yourself silly
06:34 with 180 horsepower, you got another thing coming.
06:37 - Yeah, the thing looks like a million bucks.
06:39 It's got plenty of suspension articulation.
06:41 It's, you know, it's everything that we love
06:43 about the XP1000, just jacked to the absolute moon.
06:45 - Right, and it's a little bit shorter,
06:47 a little bit narrower than a Pro R.
06:48 It's not the same platform with a different engine.
06:51 Polaris actually thought that through
06:52 and made the Turbo R a little bit less aggressive
06:55 in every respect.
06:56 It's still just as good.
06:57 But what I'm getting at is out here in East Tennessee,
06:59 where the trails are narrow and the trails are rocky,
07:02 and you don't have room to go 85 miles an hour,
07:04 the Turbo R really works 'cause it's got that turbo torque.
07:07 You're not always in, you know, at 200 horsepower
07:10 and you've got more room to get through tight trails.
07:12 - We couldn't make this list without talking about it.
07:14 It's been a, just a truly excellent machine for a long time.
07:17 Speaking of Polaris, Polaris has taken a lot of slots
07:19 on this list.
07:20 - Yeah, we got to go to number four.
07:21 This is the third Polaris in a row.
07:23 This is the 2024 Polaris Razor XP1000.
07:27 Now this is not the 2022 Polaris Razor XP1000.
07:31 For 2024, Polaris redesigned this rig from the ground up.
07:36 They went all the way back to square one.
07:38 It might look similar to an earlier Polaris Razor XP1000.
07:41 It's a completely different machine.
07:43 We were on the launch.
07:44 They actually were kind enough to do it here
07:45 in our backyard at Windrock, and we were blown away.
07:48 This has taken side-by-sides, entry-level side-by-sides
07:51 to a new level where they used to be rickety and rackety
07:54 and a little bit, well, golf-cardy, frankly.
07:56 This is a machine that has kind of come into its own
07:59 and is bringing sports side-by-sides along with it.
08:01 You're really getting what feels like
08:03 a fully realized machine out of this.
08:05 And if you don't need 180 horsepower, 100 will do.
08:09 - Well, it's not only that, right?
08:10 If you were coming to a sports side-by-side
08:12 for the very first time,
08:13 you probably don't need a Maverick R
08:15 or Pro R or Turbo R.
08:17 There is a lot of fun to be had
08:19 in that around 100 horsepower neighborhood,
08:21 and the XP1000 is the top of the class there.
08:24 - It really is, and again, out east,
08:26 it's really the machine for you.
08:28 We love the Pro R, we love the Turbo R.
08:30 You can find places to use them out here,
08:31 but if you want a rig,
08:32 you can just throw on the back of your truck,
08:34 take to whatever off-road park you wanna go to,
08:36 or the Hatfield-McCoy trails.
08:37 You know it's gonna fit.
08:39 You know you can put a younger driver
08:42 or a first-time side-by-side driver in it
08:44 and not be afraid of them getting out over their skis.
08:46 The XP1000 is it,
08:47 and we should also mention that it's reasonably inexpensive,
08:51 especially when compared to the first three rigs
08:52 on this list, all of which are costly.
08:55 We expect a Maverick R up to $73,000
08:58 just playing around on the website one day.
08:59 - Throwing accessories at it, right?
09:01 Which is insane.
09:03 You know, a Razor XP1000, topped out,
09:07 you're looking at $29,000
09:09 before you start throwing a bunch of accessories at it.
09:11 That's pretty great.
09:12 - Entry-level, you're looking at below 22.
09:14 Again, that is still a lot of money,
09:16 but you're talking about the realm of
09:19 a used pontoon boat at that point,
09:21 and I know which one I'd rather have.
09:22 - Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
09:24 Number five.
09:25 So this has been a long-time favorite of ours,
09:27 the Kawasaki KRX.
09:28 - KRX1000 is a unit.
09:31 We love this machine primarily
09:32 because it has some of the best suspension in the business,
09:35 especially for an entry-level rig.
09:36 It feels incredible.
09:37 It's dialed right out of the box.
09:39 - Still, the KRX really hasn't changed all that much.
09:42 They added a four-seat unit a while back, which is huge.
09:44 It's nice to be able to bring the family along.
09:47 But really what sets this rig apart from everything else,
09:49 without a smart suspension,
09:50 it has some of the best dynamics
09:53 of any other machine in that realm.
09:56 This isn't an open-class rig like the Mav-R and the Pro-R
09:59 or even the Turbo-R.
10:00 This is more of a in that 100 horsepower neighborhood,
10:03 but it definitely makes the best of what it has.
10:05 It comes with bead locks right out of the box,
10:08 proper wheel and tire package.
10:10 The engine braking on it is sublime.
10:13 I mean, head down a really, really steep gully,
10:17 mash the engine braking button,
10:18 and the thing will just crawl.
10:20 You don't even have to touch the brakes the entire time.
10:23 You know, at this point, it's falling a little behind
10:25 in terms of interior refinement, that sort of thing.
10:28 We wouldn't mind seeing more power.
10:30 You know, we heard that the guys at S&S
10:32 actually developed a power adder for the thing.
10:35 And I was really hoping that Kawasaki was just gonna,
10:38 you know, throw that into the lineup.
10:39 - Right. - Hasn't happened.
10:41 Still, a little more power wouldn't hurt us at this point.
10:44 A little more refinement wouldn't either.
10:45 And that's the only reason it falls behind the XP1000.
10:48 - But at 23,199, you can option it up
10:51 with Fox Live Valve Suspension, a Warn winch,
10:53 a really nice Hyphonic stereo.
10:55 So Kawasaki really has, you know,
10:57 taken steps to put some premium features on it.
10:59 And yeah, they've built a wonderful rig here,
11:01 and one that I think most people
11:02 would be super happy in for a long time.
11:04 - Absolutely, and it's worth pointing out
11:05 that especially this time of year,
11:07 they're discounting 2023 models left, right, and center.
11:10 We just wrote a post on the website
11:12 that they were knocking 2,500 bucks off those rigs.
11:14 - Yeah. - I would do that
11:15 in a heartbeat. - Yeah, that gets you
11:17 down to 20 grand, and at that point,
11:18 it is an absolute no-brainer.
11:20 Yeah, let's move on to number six on the list.
11:22 And finally, Can-Am's back in the running
11:24 with the 2024 Can-Am Maverick X3.
11:27 The whole lineup is dear to our hearts.
11:30 There are two different power ranges
11:32 you can get with the Maverick X3.
11:33 There must be 5,000 different ways
11:36 you can configure the thing from the factory.
11:37 We can't keep 'em all straight,
11:39 but there's 150 horsepower guys,
11:41 and there is a 200 horsepower guys.
11:43 Again, much like the Pro-R being just below the Maverick R,
11:47 until the Maverick R came out,
11:49 the Can-Am Maverick X3 was the top of the lineup,
11:52 and it was industry standard.
11:54 This thing is incredible.
11:55 You're getting close to two feet of suspension travel,
11:57 as I mentioned, 200 horsepower,
11:59 and you're still on a CVT,
12:00 which for a lot of people is a really helpful thing.
12:03 You don't have to think about it.
12:04 You don't have to worry about turbo lag.
12:06 You mash the gas, and that thing goes.
12:08 We've got one ourselves.
12:09 It is the rig that we chose to buy for the shop rig here,
12:12 and man, we have done so much with that machine.
12:15 - Yeah, I mean, part of the reason we bought it,
12:16 because at the time, it was the most powerful unit
12:18 we could get our hands on, right?
12:20 So just south of 200 horsepower,
12:22 and it's been excellent.
12:24 You know, we bought the Turbo RR,
12:25 which really is not for this neck of the woods.
12:28 - No.
12:28 - And like, that's really made-
12:29 - But we love to have it.
12:30 - Yeah, 100%.
12:31 It's really made for going out of the desert
12:32 and doing 100 miles an hour.
12:34 There's no desert in East Tennessee.
12:35 So we sort of, you know,
12:37 tweaked it a little bit to our liking.
12:38 We put 35s on it,
12:40 and really what surprised me more than anything
12:42 was how adaptable that machine and that drive train was.
12:45 So despite being made for just like wide open hauling,
12:48 it does great in the technical stuff.
12:51 - Even at 72 inches wide.
12:52 - Yeah, we've done a lot of rock crawling
12:54 that shouldn't be possible in a rig
12:55 that's made for top end, and it ate it up.
12:58 Where a turbo machine with 200 horsepower,
13:00 you might think is a little twitchy for rock crawling,
13:02 we put 35s on it.
13:03 That really kind of made the powertrain
13:05 work a little bit better.
13:06 It kind of smoothed everything out.
13:08 And yeah, we've got an incredibly versatile rig.
13:10 We've got a set of 32s for it.
13:12 So if we want to go do some stuff
13:13 that's a little bit faster,
13:14 we can put those on, power's back.
13:16 We put a tuner on it.
13:18 We've decked it out.
13:19 So it really is the kind of machine
13:20 that you can buy a base one pretty cheaply
13:23 with 200 horsepower and just build it to your liking.
13:26 You don't have to spend $75,000 on a Maverick R.
13:29 - Yeah, and what we really like about it
13:30 is that there really is one from the factory
13:33 to suit whatever you need,
13:35 however you ride right out of the box.
13:37 - Yeah, they've got a mud ready one.
13:38 They've got a rock crawling one.
13:39 They've got one for families, you know.
13:41 And again, I should point out
13:43 that we've spoken to desert racers
13:45 who have had absolutely no trouble
13:47 out of the Can-Am Maverick X3 up to this year.
13:50 The game moved forward this year,
13:52 but there really wasn't any trouble.
13:54 I mean, South Racing builds these things
13:55 for the Dakar Rally.
13:56 I mean, they don't have trouble
13:57 with belt temperatures in Dakar.
13:59 - Yeah, that's pretty amazing.
14:00 - That's a pretty special thing to say about it.
14:02 - All right, let's talk about some honorable mention.
14:04 You know, I'm gonna put the Honda Talon on there still.
14:06 - No, I think so.
14:07 I think that's right.
14:08 You may have seen a video from us recently
14:09 kind of busting on the Talon, how to fix the Talon.
14:12 Well, I mean, the best way to fix a Talon
14:14 is to go buy one because A, they're pretty inexpensive
14:16 and B, it was an industry standard rig in 2019.
14:19 That was four years ago
14:21 and it still does a lot of things really, really well.
14:23 Now we have complained about it,
14:25 but really those are just nitpicks
14:27 based on the industry moving ahead of the Talon
14:29 in the last four years.
14:31 But up until that point, man,
14:32 you couldn't get a side-by-side with a DCT
14:35 except for the Honda Talon and like the Yamaha YXZ.
14:38 - Well, and I still think the Talon
14:39 is the least expensive way to get into live valve period.
14:42 - Absolutely.
14:43 - And you wind up with a dual clutch transmission.
14:44 You're not dealing with a rubber belt.
14:46 For a lot of people, that combined with the Honda name
14:49 is enough to park one in the garage.
14:50 - And it's got the 100 horsepower parallel twin
14:52 out of the Africa Twin motorcycle.
14:54 It's a really characterful engine.
14:55 It sounds incredible.
14:56 It's really playful.
14:57 And you go banging through the gears in it
15:00 and it really responds and you can tell
15:02 that it's there to do the job that is have fun.
15:05 We've had them in the desert.
15:06 We've had them in the woods.
15:07 We've put 32s on them with no clearance issues.
15:09 Oh, we had a rooftop 10 on one.
15:11 - Yeah, that happened.
15:12 Yeah.
15:13 They're just, they're really playful, fun rigs.
15:16 It's great to bang through the gears with the paddles.
15:18 And if we're talking about the Pro-R having a proven engine,
15:23 nothing's more proven than pulling the engine
15:25 out of an Africa Twin.
15:27 Those bikes have been out for years.
15:29 Honda probably has hundreds and hundreds
15:31 and hundreds of thousands of miles out in the wild
15:34 on that motor, properly stout driveline.
15:37 - Yep, and you're getting Honda build quality.
15:39 Can't say fairer than that.
15:40 Right.
15:41 That'll do it for our list of our favorite
15:43 sports side-by-sides.
15:44 Head over to UTVDriver.com for more.
15:47 We have buyer's guides on each and every one of these rigs.
15:50 We got all kinds of shopping tools.
15:51 And when you're done doing that,
15:53 head over to our socials.
15:54 We're on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.
15:56 We're there seven days a week.
15:58 We'll catch you around.
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