First gen illusion tower
 

Hey malibu owners. i was looking at a boat with the first gen illusion tower. I was wondering if there were any problems with this tower as i saw it got replaced by the illusion x pretty quick.

Also, between 2003-2004 the biggest change was the gorilla fins. Do they really make that much of a difference.

It's a fantastic tower and I think it still holds up well against most towers today. Its functionally it's amazing with the spring loaded fold down so that you don't have to hold the weight of the tower.

Actually, I believe that this was the first generation illusion tower. I don't know why they changed it. It is still the best looking illusion tower IMHO.

^^^That's not an Illusion tower. I think that's a Titan. Here is the first generation Illusion tower. I think the first generation Illusion looks way better than the Illusion X. I'm not sure what they were going for with the Illusion X, but the curve did not match the curve of the boat. It was always uncomfortable to look at because it seems to protrude straight out of the boat. Maybe it's just me, but I'm glad I skipped over the Illusion X. :)

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The illusion works a charm. Never had any problems with it. One thing though, if you have to take down the tower on a regular basis, don't go earlier than the 07 (or maybe 06) models because in 05 you had to unscrew two bolts using an alon key, but with our 07, there's just 2 pins that come out easily.

Actually just though of a minor problem with ours. If you're driving in quite choppy water for some time, one of the pins can fall out gradually, but its nothing to put it back in and it takes a long amount of time in chop to do it.

The first photo with the Tubular Tower is actually the Gen 1 Illusion Tower made by Titan Wake. There was only a handful made but that is the first Illusion Tower. Met Craft made the second Gen Illusion X Tower and followed it up with a third IXS Tower.

The white tower above is illusion-x. the "serrated" version that followed is illusion xs.

Dave, you sure thats the first gen? That boat looks like an 06-08, the illusion has been around since 04 at least and did not have an anchor light on it.

We have an 05 vlx with (I think) the Illusion X, no light, allen keys to take tower down. I thought the Illusion was the first reverse curve tower used by malibu that did not have the second curve at the top (where the tow point now is) but because it did not have that extra support it was super wobbly and they nixed it fast. Am I making this up? I feel like Ive heard this but cant remember seeing an Illusion tower with no support/the tow point where the anchor light currently is

here's a similar looking malibu tower (the carbon fiber "blade"), not to be confused with the illusion.

http://www.wakeworld.com/news/featur...05-42-253.html

http://www.wakeworld.com/wwimages/ar...05/malibu2.jpg

I'm not sure what you consider a "generation." That tower came on my 2008 VLX and I had a similar tower on my 2006 VLX. They were the same shape and may have had a few different features (i.e. changing from Allen heads to pins to release it for folding). It was offered at the same time as the Blade shown above. I'm just talking about the shape. This was their first "solid" forward sweeping tower that didn't use tubing.

I'm not sure what generation Illusion tower I have. I have a 2006 247.

Scary part : When my boat was only a few months old, I was on Lake Mead when a monsoon hit. We are talking 6 foot whitecaps. I was trying to maintain a steady speed to get back to the marina and keep the nose up without slamming on the next swell too bad. My tower actually broke into two seperate pcs.... on the starboard side right near the racks. I had to have someone hold it in place so the longer pc wouldn't slam into my head while driving the boat back. I ducked toped it and towed it back to the dealer. New tower, no hassle at all. No more issues since.

The illusion is the #1 looking tower in my books by a land slide.

The Illusion X is Dave's tower. Illusion XS is the straight one they did up until a year or two ago before the two tone one they do now. There wasn't a "first generation" one specifically. There was the weird "batwing" one with the tower speakers built into it. That one was horrible.

This is the one i was looking at. I think it looks great.

I thought Skylon or Titan did make a tube style tower for Malibu called the Illusion tower. Then metcraft made the black one as the illusion x tower.

My brother has an 03 XTI with the tubular Illusion on it. Says it's an Illusion by Titan Wake on his original paperwork, like Luke explained above.

They had issues getting swivel racks to work right on the tower. So he ended up putting a Titan III on it after a couple years. It is way sturdier & was easier to design swivel racks for.