Volkl at the turn of the Century....

Can one of the Volkl guys give me a run down on the model line
hierarchy from around 2000 on. Weltcup, P9, P9RS, Renntiger, Zebra, P10 etc.

Race Skis: You had your Pxx, which has been around for a very long time as the racing line. I think it started with the P9 many many years ago. The P9 became the P10, which became the P20 -> P30 -> P40 -> P50 and finally the P60. GS and Slalom versions were made, and also a "Rec" version which was a bit more forgiving, for instance the P50 Platinum and P50 Motion from around 2002 / 2003.

The P60 was discontinued a couple of years ago and replaced with the Race Tiger (Renn Tiger auf Deutsch).

Carving Skis: Available around 2002-2006 these were the on-piste skis for aspiring carvers. V1, V2, V3, V4 and Carver motion. Higher number designates more advanced ski. This line is now the Tiger series (Tiger 10, Tiger Motion, plain "Tiger") which is aimed at beginners and intermediates, and skis very differently than the similarly named Race Tigers and the Tiger Sharks. They're all tigers now. sigh.

All Mountain The Vertigo, followed by the 724, followed by the AC series. For Vertigos and AC skis, the first digit designates the advancedness of the ski - G2/G20/G21/AC20/AC2 are the intermediate versions. G3/G30/G31/AC3/AC30 are advanced, the ones that start with 4 are wider, a bit softer, and intended more for off piste, and the ones that start with 1 are beginner noodles. No numerical designation (e.g. AC Unlimited) is a beginner ski. The 724s had an another numbering system that I never quite understood.

Supersports Völkl came out with the Supersport Series (4 star, 5 star, 6 star, All Star, etc., later called the S4, S5 etc.) around 2002. This was a new category of ski that combined the "best" attributes of the three categories above. When this line came out they dropped the rec version of their race skis, hence no P60 or Race Tiger rec versions.

As of the 2007-2008 season, the Star series is dead, replaced with the Tiger Shark series.

Motion - not a line, per se, but an integrated binding. A "motion" version of something has the binding. Some other models have them without being called motion.

Women's skis - most flavors came in a women's version, designated as "20/20" (meaning 20% lighter and 20% softer) or "Attiva" (the current designation. Don't confuse "20/20" with the AC20 or G20, although the G20 came in a 20/20 version.

Powder Skis I haven't been paying too much attention here. The Snow Rangers were supposedly the bomb around 1999. Replaced by various eastern-themed model names : Karma, Mantra, Gotama, Katana (roughly in order of wideness and powder-specificness)

Rossi,
2000 on? As in plus? Those skis you just mentioned were way earlier.
I had the slalom P20- that was 95/6 and might have been around the year earlier too.
Next I had the P40 F1 gs ski (red and white)-you have that!
that was 98/99 and was new that year. I got it late 97/8 season.

In between those two there were I believe three generations of P30's, ending in the bright orange one with plastic tip dampener in 97/98. (great ski)

see Walt has answered here...
I remember the G4 from I think 00/01 - the year it was flat black with white stripes down the middle. Beautiful looking ski (never was on it) and got great reviews. I wouldn't mind having one now. The early Vertigo was a great ski too very popular "all mountain" ski in East. I believe that one was just called the Vertigo with no numbers. Dark green/lighter green and yellow I believe.

I'm ten year off...

It appears the skis I mentioned would be in the "race" catagory....

now how about 1990-2000????? Sorry....

btw...the info you gave is still VERY useful!

According to the Realskiers website where they have reviews for the 99-00 season, Volkl had the following skis (which may not be a complete list):

All Mountain Carvers: Vetcris V30, V20 and V10

Race: P40 RC, P40 F1 and the P40 Platinum

Midfat/All Mountain: Vertigo G40, Vertigo G30 and Vertigo G20

Most of the above listed skis were 62-63mm underfoot. The widest ski listed is the V G40 at 83mm underfoot. How things have changed!!!

A little more here...
All this is going to be a bit of a mismash and you'll have to assemble this thread.
97/98 P30RC - In the East anyway, possibly the last race ski that most advanced skiers would buy. It was hugely popular and one would often see a "sea of orange" on the lift. Interestingly, as I remember, it did not get good reviews from the mags. After that lots of advanced skiers went to non race skis especially the Salomom X-Scream.

98/99 edit: ok I guess these went into 99/00
P40's. Besides the red/white (more of a cream) F1 there were I believe two other versions of P40's. There was a burnt orange/cream version I believe still called the RC. Same pattern as the F1 just different colors. We called that one the "creamsicle" because it looked like the popsicle. Then there was a yellow/cream one - the Slalom ski. That might have been called P40 SL but I don't remember. Those two were not nearly as common as the F1

edit: Yes I'm pretty sure there was a yellow one (slalom) even if not listed on Real Skiers this might only have been 99/00

99/00 edit: Ok I see this must have been 00/01.
I believe this is the year that they changed the P40 styling and shape. It could have been 00/01 though. They were now gloss black with two colored stripes down the middle. In my mind this is where Volkl styling went off the rails.
The gs version had green stripes.
The slalom had yellow stripes.
I think there was a red stripe version also.

In this series though, the biggest development was the "Energy Rail" plate. It would either already be on the ski or you could buy the rail/plate system separately. There were rails that screwed to the ski (a lot of screws) and the plate sat on top of them. There was a pin in the middle that you could move into different holes to change the flex pattern. Not many people played with that though as it worked very well without.

I had a 177 (or 75) slalom version with the Energy Rail on it. Yes, too long for actual slalom and that's why I got it cheap.
That plate system was awesome and in my mind did more to advance plate/lift on consumer skis than anything else. The plate made a huge difference in the power of the ski and it's ability to go through chopped up snow/slush etc. It was heavy though, and was replaced by the integrated rails/binding of the Motion system in the P50's. I don't think that system was nearly as powerful but was much lighter.

Was Motion 01/02 ?

That flat black G4 with the white stripes (00/01?) was one of the best looking skis Volkl ever made and a great performing ski from what I heard.

This question came up because;
1. I have four pairs of Volkl's.... Weltcup(sl), P20 SL, P40 F1 and Snow Rangers.

2. I've been looking for a pair of early Renntiger's, lime green w/red stripes.

3. Wanted to better understand the Volkl pecking order and what years certain models came out. If you review my original post here, those are the particular model skis I was asking about but am very happy to receive other my current info as well.

So thanks for all the great information and keep it coming!!!

and the explosives didn't change at all from the first pair in the mid 90's? to the end of the run with CMH in 05

I think all four of the skis you mention are pre 2000. The P40 might have been 2000.

I don't know when Renntigers came out. Since this is more or less a direct translation from "Race Tiger" I thought these were the same thing, but it appears that Renntigers have been around longer than Race Tigers, or at least longer than Race Tigers have been available in north America.

Volkl skis have always been very confusing to me. For example the P60s:

P60 GC racing
P60 SC Racing
P60 RC
P60 Motion

The P50s I remember there being an F1 version and all sorts.

I have run Voelkl skis for about five years now and I love them. I am using two pair of skis, one 7.24 Pro and one sixstar (the graphite coloured version). These has the older rail system which fits the Marker rail bindings. The great feature is that it is possible to buy a plate from Voelkl which fits on the rail. On this plate I have mounted a 7tm Telemark release binding. Witih this I can swap bindings on my skis and go both Telemark and Alpin thru the whole mountain!
The bad thing is when Voelkl now has made a new rail, there is no new plate available. So now I am stuck with my old skis......

There's not much to it, at least for the racing skis. There's a SL cut and a GS cut. There's also "race stock" skis which meet FIS specs, available in SL and GS.

Völkl also offers a toned-down version of their racing skis which are softer, more forgiving and (in some years) have a sidecut in between GS and SL. These "rec" versions go by a variety of names: Platinum, Motion, RC Energy, etc depending on the whim of the marketing department. The Race Tiger RC is the current incarnation.

The P50 F1 was the GS racing ski - I don't think it had a FIS legal version, since this was before they started cracking down on "cheater" sidecuts, but I might be remembering it wrong.

Oh, yeah, there are also Jr versions. Don't know much about them....

Are we including the

carving:
F series (F4, F5, F10) that came in with the rail system,
T50 series that was the cheater sidecut and wound up getting 4, 5 stars
220/320/380/420 etc. carvers and their Y-versions?

All-mountain/ park
Expression
V-Explosive
V-Pro
Legend
?

This is incorrect. There is/was a rec version of both the P60 and the Race Tiger, called the "RC".

IIRC, they dropped the rec version the first year of the P60, but subsequently brought it back .

Comrex,

Agreed, Völkl has made a dizzying array of ski models since the turn of the century, and it's hard to keep track of all of them. But I don't think they're particularly more confusing than the other manufacturers. For instance, Atomic's 2009 model year includes the following :

DH Race
SG Race
GS 12 Race
SL 12 Race
SG Jr. Race
GS 12 Jr. Race
SL 12 Jr. Race
GS 12 PB Race
SL 12 PB Race
SX 12 PB Race
Race 10 Jr. Race
Race 8 Jr.
Nomad Crimson
Nomad Blackeye
Nomad Whiteout
Nomad Highnoon
Nomad Bluemoon
Nomad Sunburst
Drive 11 Carbon
Drive 9 Titan
Drive 7 Scandium
Drive 5 Fiber STP
Big Daddy
Sugar Daddy
Snoop Daddy
Thug
Pimp
Punx
Urban Punx
Twins
She Devil
Deviant
Bad Kitty
Lil Punx
Girly Punx
Rascal
Raisin Hell
Seventh Heaven
Heaven 'n Hell
Heaven's Gate
Cloud 9
Cloud 8
Cloud 7
Cloud 6
Race 7 Jr.
Mini Rascal
Sweet Stuff

And that's just this year. Add in the previous eight year's offerings and who could possibly keep track?

I have been a fan of Volkl for many years and have most of the consumer brochures going back to 96/97. (If you have a specific question, I may be able to look it up.) I believe most of the information put forth so far has been mostly accurate, with some minor errors.

I'll try to put some time frame on some of their "series of skis."

As memory serves, Volkl was originally imported into the US late '60s early '70s(?) by a distributor named Beconta. (Also distributed Look bindings and Nordica boots)
Primary, US imported ski models then, were the Zebras and Tigers; they created a model in 1970(?) called the Sapporo prior to the '72 Olympics in Sapporo, Japan.
Volkl mostly faded from the US market around the mid-70s, due to unreliable delivery of product in the US; apparently, due to strong sales in Europe.(This is memory and may not be entirely reliable.) New distribution in the US (early to mid '80s) led to their current market position.

Generally, Volkl GS skis are red (Pink or Purple P9 RS were exceptions); Slaloms are yellow.

Most Renntigers(considered an all mountain, "combi" ski) were yellow with black sidewalls,last "yellow-years" had white sidewalls;then in late '80s (when most Volkls were "graphite") the Renntiger had yellow highlights.
I am not aware of a lime green Renntiger. There were lime green P9/P10 SLCs(soft slaloms.)

In the '80s, Volkl's racing skis used the "Explosiv" name designation.

The "P" series began with the P9 name based on the idea of that a "perfect 10" was impossible, therefore, the P9. (Obviously, this concept was not held to by their marketing department.)
I believe the following are fairly accurate timelines:
P9 -- 1991, 1992,1993
P10 -- 1994,1995
P20 -- 1996, 1997(in 1997 they also introduced a P11:all-mtn,high perf.)
P30 -- 1998,1999; Orange Race Carver(RC)
P40 -- 2000: Red/White F1 Race Carver(GS), OrangeRC(all-mtn) both have plastic "wart" on tip
P40 -- 2001(Wart goes away; skis use "energY' construction)
Black w/Red F1(GS; all-Mtn); Black w/green(same ski w/"energYrail" binding plate
P50 -- 2002 F1(GS) is green!
P50 -- 2003 Back to Red/GS and Yellow/Slalom;Integrated binding systems are all called "Motion"
P60 -- 2004, 2005
Racetiger -- 2006,2007,2008 New racing ski designation

Volkl, as a smaller ski company, has always produced numerous models but in limited quantities.

I'll try to address the all mountain groups,etc. in another reply.

Hey Tricky Sr., nice post and welcome to epic!

So your brochures are saying the P40F1 series was 99/00 season?
I guess that means I bought them in March '99 though I'll have to try and find out.
P40-2001 don't forget the yellow stripe slalom version.

I know. I gave up years ago trying to keep up with all the manufacturers. Even in their own lines it's impossible with no sense to some of the names at all. - like those Atomics. If I was a dealer I'd be highly annoyed with so many different models.

ANS: I think we could. Peter Keelty makes a good start with his archived lists; SierraJim has a bit of a GearWiki on his site that could have terribly good potential.


FWIW, my comment wasn't really intended to snark on ommissions, rather to gauge the direction of RossiSmash's main interest.

Is the white/red plastic bubble in the tip-center of the ski, like it was on the '99 P30s (early version) or does plastic surround the edges of the tip with allen bolts securing the thing on from underneath (2000 and later)?

Now we're talking....

TrickySr., thanks for all that great info

This all started when I stumbled upon this first picture, I wondered what year each of these skis were from....

The second pic with just two skis are two of my Volkl's...also wanted to nail down both of these by year (bought used)

So.....what do you think????

I rented a pair of P50 F1s (the green ones) back in the day not knowing what they were since they looked innocent enough (ie. didn't have OMG RACE!! all over them). They were really too much ski for me back then, stacks of edge hold, stiffer than anything I had ever skied and fast as hell. Only internet research later confirmed what they were!

I've still got two pair of the P20 slaloms, one in 205cm bought new, the other 200cm I got probably 2 years later used.

P10 was a great ski. I only demoed it one day and it was coming sometime after I didn't ski for a long, long, time. As soon as I skied it I realized what people were talking about with Volkl. The more you put into it the more you got back. Lot of rebound in the P10.

I actually received that picture from a friend yesterday. Here is my best guess.

P9 Slalom(yellow)--'91
Renntigers(yellow/black sidewalls) --early 80s
Zebras(white/black)--could be from late 60s into the 70s
P9 RS(Pink)--'92
Renntiger( Black)--'86
P9 SLC(soft slalom)(green)--'92 or '93(can't tell with sticker)
P10 SLC(soft slalom)(green)--'94
Yours, I believe, are '91 P9s and '97 P20s.

I have kept some skis that I felt were "benchmark" skis in their day.
Most are Volkls. 205cm '85 Renntiger 'R', 205cm '92 P9 RS, 206cm '97(teamstock)P20 Super GS, 195 cm '98 P30 Race Carvers(no plastic wart), 193cm '01 P40 F1 Race Carvers(Black/red),168cm '04 5 Stars.(These are just the ones I kept. Yes!Yes! Yes! I am a ski junky! )

Thank you for the welcome!
Unfortunately, I don't have the 98/99 brochure. However, if they were P40s, they would have probably not been available to the general public until fall of 1999('99/'00 season.)

here we go:
98/99

P30:
rc racing orange
race carver orange
rs racing red (GS)
rs super red
sl racing (SL)

carver:
carver expert blue
carver vectris black
carver plus red
carver xcape blue
carver servo black
carver access red
funcarver 88 blue
funcarver 58 red

freeride
cross carver orange
snow ranger creamy
mountain ranger light blue
explosiv blue with black
mountain 5000 orange with yellow
mountain 4000 yellow

classic
sls blue
renntiger yellow
tiger red

junior
race carver red
rs racing dark red
sl racing yellow
renntiger yellow (darker)
carver red
presto blue

voila

Back in the early 90s I skied on a pair of P9 Super GS Volkls -- hell, I didn't know how to turn anyway and they were a hoot for going fast! At Jackson Hole in February 96 I demo'd a pair of Volkl Snow Rangers, which was kind of dumb since I had no idea how to ski, and generally tried to avoid, powder; I lost it on Bivouac when the bumps swelled up and an edge sliced right through the knee of my one-piece -- got it fixed overnight by a highly skilled seamstress in Jackson town.

Tricky,
I remember that the P20's also came in an SLC version - they were blue and had a cracked (segmented) edge instead of a solid edge. They were supposed to be softer.

The P30Rc from 98/99 which had the large plastic damper on them I used to call the "platypus" tips. The tips on those skis were much lower/wider and rounder than what we were used to plus they had the large plastic piece on them. So they looked very different for the time. Plus there were the other versions of the P30 so when you said "platypus tips" people knew which ski you were talking about.

Volkl wing....

Current state of the Volkl stash

The P9 series was introduced in 1987/ 1988, I raced on them.

Rossi Smash's first photo shows the original P9 SL (first ski on left) and P9 RS (pink ski in the middle), both from 87/88.

I also started racing on P9's in 88, so I would say that info is accurate. By the way, that yellow P9 SL, and the Pink P9 GS in that picture were so far ahead of every other race ski in performance that it wasn't even fair.

I wish I had the ability back then to use them properly.....