AmSnow.com is now SnoWest.com
Every snowmobile manufacturer is constantly looking to create new products.
In 1975 Arctic Cat, with input and encouragement from a vice president of Japan’s Mikuni carburetors, thought there might be a market for a snowmobile-like vehicle that could be used in the sand. The target market was the United Arab Emirates on the Persian Gulf.
Pantera based
Doug Dehnert, working in special vehicle design at Arctic Cat, used a Pantera snowmobile as a base for the new vehicle. He modified it with a set of trailing arms holding a straight front axle and coil springs over shocks along with a special flared out hood to cover the new Cat’s tires. The width to the outside of the tires is 54 inches, which makes this vehicle very stable.
In the fall of 1975 Doug and his crew loaded two units, with extra experimental parts to test, and went to the Imperial Sand Dunes, just west of Yuma, Ariz., just over the border into California.
The Arctic Cat team tried rubber tracks with bogey wheel setups, like Ski-Doo had in its Olympic sleds, but the track was not stiff enough. They found it was better to use a rubber track with fiberglass rods and a slide-rail with assist wheels.
Team Arctic, which seemed an ironic name in the hot, dry sand dunes, also used a K&N paper air filter for the carburetor. With the Suzuki 5000 motor being fan cooled the only major problem the team had was sand working its way into the drive clutch. Doug said the sand’s grittiness wore parts out too quickly.
Round two
The determined Cat engineers went back to Yuma in the spring of 1976 with two new units and put 3,000 sandy miles on each. They tried different tires, one wide and one center ribbed, discovering that the regular narrow tires worked just as well in the sand.
The sand machine ran well though and the Cat team was ready to meet with representatives from the United Arab Emirates to try and sell its concept, now known as the Sand Cat.
Things got off to a rocky start, right from the beginning.
Two units were shipped overseas, but one was lost in transit. Worse yet, when the remaining Sand Cat was being unloaded, it fell off a forklift and damaged its front-end. Doug had to quickly find an aluminum welder to do repairs on the remaining prototype.
After fixing the Sand Cat the team loaded it into the back of a pickup and headed out to a rural spot to demonstrate the machine’s capabilities to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. On the way to the demo site the pickup had a flat tire and the team ended up being late for the demo and had to reschedule it for 10 days later. The good news? By that time they had found the other Sand Cat
The Sheikh’s eldest son could speak English and took the Sand Cat for a ride. He was very impressed and wanted to know where he could mount a machine gun. With the Sand Cat having around 45 horsepower and being able to run 50 to 60 mph, this unique machine maneuvered well over the sand where other machines couldn’t travel. He saw the Cat’s potential.
Yet ultimately it didn’t work out. After Doug had spent months overseas demonstrating the Sand Cat in the desert, Emirate officials still preferred to use pickups in the sand. Both Sand Cats were sent back to Arctic Cat, although one may have been sent on to the Mikuni offices in Japan.
Only six Sand Cats were made and I’m lucky enough to have one in my collection. This is one I bought in the Arctic Cat auction in August 1982, when the original firm was selling off some assets during its bankruptcy. I’m not sure what happened to the other five prototypes. But thanks to Doug Dehnert and Arctic Cat for creating the Sand Cat. I feel lucky to have one. It still runs well, as the pictures here (and on our website) show. This was a unique unit and a very interesting chapter in Arctic Cat’s storied history.