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In 1960 Merit Gear, a small machine shop in Antigo, Wis., started making snowmobiles. Its sled was known as the Bear Cat, similar in name to today's Arctic Cat workhorse.
Merit Gear was started by Frank Cerny in 1951 and employed 20 workers. From 1960 to 1963, the small machine shop made about 50 sleds. Merit Gear's primary market was logging and farm industries, making gears, sprockets and spline shafts, so this snowmobile was truly a specialty vehicle for Merit Gear.
The Bear Cat was unique in that it was intended as a workhorse (sound familiar?) and was used by several Christmas tree plantations for skidding trees. In northern Wisconsin, one resort used a Bear Cat for performing a variety of winter maintenance duties.
This all-purpose sled had two forward speeds and one reverse, with the entire transmission made by Merit Gear. The gearbox was state-of-the-art when considering transmission engineering of this period.
To operate a Bear Cat, the driver sat with his or her legs straddling the 8-horsepower, 4-cycle Kohler engine. Controls consisted of a light switch, ignition switch, choke knob, shifting handle, steering wheel and foot-operated gas pedal. Operating this machine was much like running a small tractor, yet the Kohler centrifugal clutch and secondary were similar to other snowmobiles of that era.
The Bear Cat's automotive style steering wheel was a handful due to the large size of its skis (12 inches wide), and its top speed was an eye-watering 20 mph!
Two separate leaf springs were used to stabilize those giant skis, while in back, a 23-inch wide track was made from a heavy roller chain and sections of a snow fence post. These sections of post were then welded to the drive chain as cleats, and those cleats provided a great deal of traction for this hefty 580+ lb. ma-chine. Plus there was 14-inch wide rubberized canvas, which acted as a web, attached to the cleats.
On each side of the rear axle was a coil spring mounted in a pipe that acted as a track tensioner. The track drive was a pair of large Merit Gear chain sprockets mounted on two-pillar ball bearings. Drive to the axle was directly from the exit shaft of the gearbox.
Suspension or track guiding was provided by either a slide rail or a large boggie wheel's rigid mount design. This was unique for a snowmobile company in those days.
The Bear Cat had a prominent fiberglass hood with headlight. At the rear of the machine was a large platform. This provided cargo area surrounded by a railing for transporting tools, etc.
In 1965 a company from Chetek, Wis., purchased the design for building the Bear Cat. This company made only about 20 sleds.
Merit Gear worked with Fox Trac for a number of years after that, helping it engineer other sleds. Today Merit Gear makes heavy off-road transmission components. The company performs custom gear grinding and heat-treating. Its staff has grown to more than 100 employees.