Just a year ago in this very column I discussed how sled makers could follow automakers lead and work together to create new sleds and keep their costs down while offering more products.
The impetus was Yamaha and Arctic Cat working together so both have a viable 120 youth sled. It worked well for each of them on that, so why not try it on a sled for the broader market. Well, they did and I’m feeling a little like Carnac the Magnificent, Johnny Carson’s old seer schtick.
Now some folks are going to read other things into this sharing of technology. Cat offers up a chassis, Yamaha offers up an engine and voila, a fast and light 4-stroke sled is available to fill a niche in each of their lineups.
But this is simply the way business is done in today’s marketplace where costs are always spiraling upward and time to market is of the essence. Think in the auto world of Toyota’s Scion brand and Subaru joining forces to quickly create their FR-S and BRZ sport coupes, respectively.
Such cooperative efforts make all that much more sense in the snow world, where the market itself is stagnant, and in bad snow years, has actually shrunk.
So we shouldn’t be shocked. Cat has for years purchased engines from various manufacturers, so surely this is nothing unusual for Team Arctic. Cat needed a muscular 4-stroke as its relationship with Suzuki winds down and Yamaha makes the best on the market, so into a Cat it goes.
Yamaha needs a lightweight chassis while it works on developing a new one of its own, so it makes the deal with Cat for its ProCross as a stopgap. OurTech Editor Olav Aaen says it's the best of both worlds.
I see this as a good move for both. My money is on this working, and bet we’ll see more in the future. What do you think?
View Arctic Cat's release on the agreeement here.