Can-Am Commander

Every bad boy has a little bit of off-road blood flowing through their veins.  After all, who doesn’t like to sling a little dirt now and then?  Even young Anakin Skywalker was an off-road racer long before he became the galaxy roving menace known as Darth Vader.  If Lord Vader had stuck to his terrestrial roots though, we imagine his machine would look something like the awesome Commander owned by Lance Guidry.  

When Can-Am introduced their Commander Side x Side, it set a new standard for performance, refinement, and handling.  With a limited number of Side x Sides on the market at the time, the Commander was widely considered a hi-performance machine, but since then there have been many other models introduced including several dedicated solely to going fast.

CAN-AM is a company on the move.  Last year they introduced an all-new chassis in their top of the line ATVs and this year we expect the second generation chassis to make it on almost every other Renegade and Outlander model in the lineup as well.  Their special edition models come with over-the-top features that make them the luxury vehicles of the off-road world, but they’re much more than just a pretty face.  The first mandate for any Can-Am ATV or Side x Side is that it must perform and these are the models that really put them over the top.

When the CAN-AM Commander was released, it offered a level of performance, refinement, and handling that set a new standard for Side x Side excellence. That has not changed, but the Commander is also a “crossover model” because it has the ability to perform work tasks extremely well thanks to a rear dump box and a sturdy hitch. All five Commander models share a common chassis with dual A-arms at the front and CAN-AM’s TTI trailing arms in the rear, the difference being how each model is outfitted. Engine choices are an 800cc or 1000cc liquid cooled, SOHC Rotax V-Twin EFI engine.

If you’ve got either a dirt toy or a band with an Axle in it, sooner or later you’re going to have problems. Just ask Slash and the other guys from Guns-N-Roses. Recently, when we came limping back to the shop with our Can-Am Commander, we had a dysfunctional axle of our own. Luckily for us, our axle problems were much easier to solve than those of Slash and the boys, and the only therapy needed was a little help from the guys at Gorilla Axle.

If you’re the owner of a Can-Am Commander you have a lot to be happy about. In all of our miles and testing with our Commander we haven’t found much negative to say about them. They have great power, excellent ergonomics, and over-the-top features that put many other UTVs in the runner-up position. The handling of the Commander is also very good, but several times we did wish that the base and XT packages had the precise steering and flat cornering of the X package. Fortunately, that flat handling is only as far away as your local dealership.