2026 Polaris 650 Indy XC 137
Handling was quite good, with a flat feeling front end and skis that held their line well. In stutter bumps, the rMotion X again showed why it’ s the industry benchmark for absorbing energy. However, playing Ricky Racer through mogul minefields, the design slips slightly behind some competitive options.
“ It swapped a little bit when on full-throttle in the chop with the 129-inch track, but it pivoted nicely in tight turns,” one test rider said.
Our team strongly prefers the Sport mode on the Smart Shox, only switching to Comfort mode when going through continuous trail chop. But our most aggressive riders said they’ d save their cash and order an MXZ X-RS with manual-adjust KYB 40s instead.
“ The modern X-RS – especially with Smart Shox plus the 600 twin – isn’ t a‘ race sled for the trails,’ and that’ s a compliment,” one test rider summarized.“ Instead, it’ s now a well-mannered, high-end trail cruiser that anyone could enjoy.”
2026 Polaris 650 Indy XC 137
Sometimes it’ s funny how much difference one simple little letter can make. For instance, owning $ 10 million is better than owing $ 10 million. Yet all that was changed was a single letter. Vehicle names have long let a single letter separate different packages – there’ s quite a difference in features between a
Silverado LS, LT and LTZ, for example.
But what about snowmobiles? Earlier in this article, our test team heaped all sorts of praise upon a 650 Indy XCR 137. But what if the“ R” in the name magically disappears and we’ re left with a 650 Indy XC 137 instead?
A quick glance at spec charts reveals very little separation between the two models, yet they serve two different segments within the snowmobile market. To separate them, we took each on an extended trail ride and asked our test riders to compare, contrast and paint us a picture of the ideal riders for each.
What’ s New?
“ What’ s new?” is a bit of a trick question when it comes to the 650 Indy XC 137 because the answer could be“ everything” or“ just a handful of small things” depending on how you look at it.
The 2026 Indy XC is in one sense all-new because it didn’ t exist in model year 2025. It was among the models that Polaris parked for one year as the company dealt with excess dealer inventory coming out of the crappy winter of 2023-24.
The 2026 model that is now back is quite similar to the last Indy 650 XC built – the 2024 version. However, a series of quality improvements instituted on 2025 Indy models now find their way onto this machine in 2026. These include new pistons and hotter-range spark plugs to improve run quality on the 650 Patriot engine, plus a smattering of durability-focused
JANUARY 2026 / SNOWGOER. COM / 23