Nearly a month ago, we laid pretty hard on Belassi and the road its taken in getting the latest batch of prototypes in front of ever-hopeful personal watercraft enthusiasts. At the recent Top Marques Monaco manufacturers’ display event in Monaco within the Casino de Monte-Carlo, the Linz, Austria-based company displayed its most recent prototype: a polished, far more posh version of its current non-existent top tier machine, the B3R, a turbocharged 333-horsepower super runabout.
The 2017 prototype features almost inexplicable features that are so over-the-top that they’re almost superfluous on such a machine. The ’17 B3R’s top deck was highlighted by a sequence of pale blue LEDs wrapping around the utmost fairings as well as a tail marker presumably tied to the brand’s own version of Sea-Doo’s iBR.
The hardlined, angular contours of the craft were sumptuously wrapped in either soft, forgiving vinyl or deep, rich automotive-grade paint. The seat is almost explicitly for a single-seater, and the lack of stowage compartments makes this concept look less like a “proof of concept” and more a “we can dream, can’t we” effort.
Needless to say, the Belassi units drew quite a crowd but ultimately result in very little real world units, as Belassi’s presence at Top Marques Monaco was more to measure public interest, gather a quantity of hard committals (resulting in hopeful down payments), and lastly, to secure an “angel” investor to actually make the company’s aspirations become an albeit shaky reality.
So a (Just throwing a number out there based on the styling of and promises surrounding the… thing, just seems to me like it will be expensive, plus very low volume. The badge is even a blatant ripoff of the Bugatti badge!) 30k PWC that has zero practicality even compared with say, an FZR, has only 10% more power than the heaviest hitters and comes from an unproven manufacturer with a reputation for vaporware. Sign me up! (Please don’t)