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When you think of side-by-sides or UTVs, you’ll most likely conjure up images of a roll cage jacked up on an arm’s length of suspension travel, shod with massive tires ripping around desert dunes and tearing through a mountain trail. Or, you’ll picture a seasoned ranch hand puttering along mending a fence or moving hay bails. If you’re in the market for a UTV it’s understandable to see one as too extreme, over the top and unnecessary and the other as dull and joyless. The Polaris General lives at the 50-yard line between the company’s performance-centric RZR and its workhorse Ranger.
The Good: Slinging the General around the surrounding trails and property at the Main Line Overland Festival, it quickly became abundantly clear how a UTV like the 180 horsepower Can-Am Maverick X3 XD S turbo was complete overkill. Unbelievably fun, yes. But, is that much power needed to entertain yourself on a gravel back road or rock crawling path? No. The 100 horsepower the General sends to all four of its wheels is more than enough to get the back end to step out, get you into all sorts of trouble and get you out of that trouble when you come face to face with a boulder or log crossing.
Who It’s For: Overlanders, and active lifestyle types. Considering it’s not too raucous, the General was designed with weekend warriors in mind. It has enough power to keep you on your toes, a utility bed, significant payload capacity, 1,500-lbs winch and the ability to add optional racks, cargo boxes, light bars and tougher rims.
Watch Out For: One problem with Polaris performance UTVs is they inherit the upright seating position from the Ranger. The proper posture works fine when you’re putting the machine to use as a docile cargo hauler, but the minute you want to switch to hooligan mode, the higher seat position multiplies the “we’re about to tip over” feeling.
When it comes to getting the machine optioned exactly as you need it, prices start to climb. The base model doesn’t come with much and a $1,500 jump to the Premium trim only gets you the 4,500-lbs winch, front bumper and painted body panels (which you’ll probably scratch up immediately). The $20,299 Deluxe edition buys you a roof, MTX sound Bar and Fox podium shocks on top of what the Premium offers. And that’s just the two-door model, the four-door starts at $21,299. So if you can live without the bells and whistles, the smart buy is to go with the base and add the roof, cargo boxes and racks yourself, which start around $250.
