It's Like Surfing on Asphalt: Slingshot, Polaris' Sleek Moto-Car Hybrid

Recreational Drag-Racing: Polaris' new Slingshot offers the track experience in a hybridized roadster.

"Like surfing asphalt," quips a joyrider in the thundering first look at Polaris Industries' new vehicle: The Slingshot. Polaris' latest vehicle, The Slingshot charges like a desert rattler, its projecting headlights illumining the path beyond, its body clinging so close to the asphalt you feel it vibrating through your whole body.

It's no surprise that the Slingshot comes from a company like Polaris. A bygone team of partners - among them Edgar Hetteen - combined old chevy bumpers as skis and a conveyor belt to create the first snowmobile. Polaris is the very same company which later formed around the vehicle. And Slingshot continues their legacy of pushing the bounds of human travel. Hetteen himself led a team of snowmobilers across the Alaskan wilderness to advertise the first production model.

The Slingshot brings its brave riders to an entirely new level. Merely 5 inches above the asphalt hovers a steel space frame, and on that - the driver's seat. You cannot help but feel a sense of the extreme, of the bold adventure that first piloted the company's vehicles. The vehicle truly is a slingshot, not so much in the forked-stick-and-rubber-band fashion but in its celestial pull. It draws a driver in by its sleek gravity, accelerates, and changes the course of his or her life.

It is not a motorcycle, nor is it a car. It has no doors, no roof; just a manual transmission and an open cockpit to let the driver experience the road as - well, as only a sports car can. There are two color choices: the standard Slingshot Metallic, a smoky gray with black geometric detailing, or the SL Pearl, morphed into a bright crimson. This 1700 pounds on a trussed space frame experience is sport-tuned with double wishbone suspension, coil over gas-filled shocks, and a carbon fiber reinforced belt drive. And if that's not enough for you there's a waterproof LED media console and upgradeable interior lighting in a cool, ultraviolet blue. But hey, this is no sunday drive, so prepare for the g-force mounting each switchback - this one requires a helmet.

Photography by Polaris