Up to 1991, watercraft were general purpose ‘get around on the water’ vehicles. Riders would ride around in a relatively defined area and in some case this led to riding around a “bouy-course” which leads to going around the buoy-course faster than the other guy and this led to looking for more performance. If they wanted a little more performance they had to look to the aftermarket as production models were very, well, ‘vanilla’ performance wise yet there was a wealth of aftermarket products available to up the performance or give that customized look. Performance out of the box had not been a consideration, until 1991.
The 1991 Sea-Doo XP changed the game. This model changed the perceptions of what was possible straight from the ‘factory’ when Bombardier launched the XP with the first production twin carb (carburetors) system, tuned exhaust pipe, and screaming neon graphics. The XP (extra performance) was the new ‘must have’ vehicle for performance enthusiasts and quickly become the watercraft of choice for the fledgling runabout (sit-down models) closed course racing.
The 1991 Sea-Doo XP was the first high-performance specific production model and gave birth to the term, “Musclecraft”.
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