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2020...Good, bad, or ugly?

I hope not because I love the sled but what a lame release. Don't know the complete skinny. Can't get on their website. No ambassadors or pro riders raving about them. No nothing. I know that stuff cost money but it also gets people excited and makes sales. They have some guy reading from a teleprompter and then rob kincaid talking about crossover sleds that you can tell he hates. Way to throw in the towel. I guess I am really griping because I love standup jet skis and I watched it die out over time and when competition starts folding the rest get lazier and lazier. Pretty quick people just aren't as excited and just kind of dies out.
 
IMO arctic cat held some patents on things textron wanted. I am not a side by side guy but I have heard cat had something really cool in the mill. Also the monorail. I also think the Yamaha contract played a part. Sell sleds for a few years until the Yamaha contract expires, don't invest any r and d money then either fold it and sell the patents or sell the snowmobile portion off

What do I know. All out my a$$ bs i am sure.
 
There will be plenty of Alpha's for in season buyers. Snowcheck only is just a gimmick to try and get you to pay full retail for a sled you can buy for thousands less in January. Manufacturers getting more desperate all the time trying to find people willing to over pay for their product.
 
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I personally am not the guy who gets all bent out of shape on graphics and colors, but as a business owner, I know that people do get all wrapped around the axles about this sort of thing. I wish I could understand why they invest so little on graphics. Unfortunately I think Poo sells so many RMK’s just because they have custom color schemes for everyone. Hopefully cat gets on board with what sells and offer custom color schemes that people can click and order online. Something that gets everyone’s blood pumping and they say “I’ve got to have that”.

That and they need to sponsor Caleb Kesterke, like yesterday.... mark my words, if they don’t, Poo or doo will pick him up and soon.
 
I can understand the spring order only tactic. It doesnt mean that cat is providing customer spring orders only, but i beleive they have come to the realization that are not the top snowmobile producer and trying to scale down production so that their dealer network does not jave to take inventory they have no means to sell, stock or even have room for. The dealer nextwork is just flooded with current and non current units.

Dealers still have full oppertunity to place their stocking dealer orders along with customer spring orders. If you talk to your dealer, they will tell you their order obligations are still very high
 
Surprised getting rid of the twin rail MC.

Updated motor should give it plenty of power to hang with the others. I would have been much more likely to part with cash if they had fixed the intake (not just the leaks, the configuration that gets buried in deep snow), went to a taller spindle aka ice age, and dropped some pounds with a belt drive and lighter weight hood. How hard is that? With Poos issues, now was the time to gain some market share. Guess the bronze makes some people happy.
 
I think having a another year of basically the same sled is good gets more monorails out there to prove that they work. I was hoping for a belt drive and maybe for the hardcore to have the twin rails. I’m no pro rider cliff jumper but the drop of lifts I do take the alpha doesn’t seem to be as stable landing.
 
The mono rail is so fun but damn they are missing out big time not making the the HC a dual rail with a punched out alpha style track. Engine changes sound nice.

I just hope they are gearing up for something big in 2021!
 
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spiceyunicorn said:
You're not the first person I've heard say cats on the way out but if it's true why would Textron buy them up if they were dying and on their way out? Yeah Arctic cat was a competitor in the atv/side by side but if Arctic cat was truly in that much trouble why spend the money to buy them out rather and just let them die?
Click to expand...

I have seen some posts on other sites that had some theory's on this. I don't remember the details, but Textron recently reorganized in such a way that would make it very easy to either close down the Cat snowmobile segment, or sell them off and keep the UTV segment. Over the past 30 years the company I work for has changed hands several times and I can tell you from personal experience no one ever buys a company because they want to dump a bunch of money into it. The opposite is true, they buy you because your either a cash cow or they have technology that they want. Cat certainly wasn't bought because it was a cash cow, and most of the growth potential and most valuable technology is in the UTV market. Textron will demand that Cat sleds be profitably enough to not be a drag on the overall stock price, or they will sell it or close it down. Why would they close them down you ask? A good accountant could answer this better than I could, but unless you can get a high enough price for any asset sometimes it makes more sense from a tax standpoint to close it down and take the loss than sell it. You then sell the remaining individual capital assets separately (land, buildings, equipment). I believe this strategy is called "tax harvesting". I hope this doesn't happen as I have had several Cat sleds in the past and am thinking of buying one from next year. We all lose if Cat doesn't remain a player in the market.
 
Going out of their way to call the sleds "Arctic Cat" and their ATV/UTVs "Textron" certainly follows that plan of action.




Come on Honda. Where are you? We need you!
 
Maybe Yamaha’s light at the end of the tunnel for a 2 stroke.
That fake news red and white one that floated around for a week or so was interesting.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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gonehuntnpowder said:
IMO arctic cat held some patents on things textron wanted. I am not a side by side guy but I have heard cat had something really cool in the mill. Also the monorail. I also think the Yamaha contract played a part. Sell sleds for a few years until the Yamaha contract expires, don't invest any r and d money then either fold it and sell the patents or sell the snowmobile portion off

What do I know. All out my a$$ bs i am sure.
Click to expand...

I think this is the case. I remember reading something a while back that Textron only purchased AC for their wheeled or off road segment so they could compete with Polaris on the government / military contracts as Polaris had the lion share of that.
 
I don’t think the AC sleds are going away. You see more AC sleds on the hill now a days more than anything. I think they kept the changes slight for 2020 to get more mono rails out there to test them so 2021 they can make some major upgrades or even a new platform with engine. No company makes leaps every year how many years did poo run the axis before the 850. And the doo how many years have they stayed the gen4 with slight improvements every year
 
Y’all keep speculating based on other speculation based on someone’s wild ass post. Where’s that 880 again?
 
i think you are seeing the beginning of the end of cat. kirk Hibbert was told he needs to plan to retire. the locals in thief river said there has been 0 sled testing by the factory this year.
 
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