2024 Arctic Cat Catalyst 'Chassis' details?

[EvilBird]

I hope its great . Be nice to have a new killer Cat chassis available. Even I would consider one and I haven't ridden a Cat in years. 

[Premium]

25 minutes ago, Crnr2Crnr said:

honestly, if I were in charge I would have made damned sure it was a race ready platform for SX and XC this winter so people could see it in action and be assured it has that tough reliable chassis people are accustomed to and expect.

I feel everyone here wants the new chassis to be a success, even those who've been away from Cat for a while.

The spirit of this sentence is what made me take a hard look at Textron's Arctic Cat.  As Cat guys we always kind of had a chip on our shoulder. The little company that did the most with the least. The die-hards from other brands regularly took shots on the Cat guys out of a mixture of their own brand loyalty and a tangible bit of envy.

Not so anymore. The envy is gone and pity has taken its place.

That change was a wake-up call to me and I have zero issues making my thoughts known about Textron's handling of the brand.

Edited December 2, 2022 by Premium

[AK440]

1 hour ago, Premium said:

The spirit of this sentence is what made me take a hard look at Textron's Arctic Cat.  As Cat guys we always kind of had a chip on our shoulder. The little company that did the most with the least. The die-hards from other brands regularly took shots on the Cat guys out of a mixture of their own brand loyalty and a tangible bit of envy.

Not so anymore. The envy is gone and pity has taken its place.

That change was a wake-up call to me and I have zero issues making my thoughts known about Textron's handling of the brand.

Hopefully Textron is realizing the mistakes it made with the brand and is now correcting them. Only having two OEMs to choose from sucks. 

[Crnr2Crnr]

2 hours ago, mnstang said:

It'd be great if they can race it this year.  Sounds like they may do that in the XC mod class.

yep, mod class XC is it as far as we peons know.  but again if I was calling the shots every XC and SX class would be on them.  remember the 2018 sleds?  they swung for the fences and dominated SX and USXC events in nearly all categories.  Now... ?

just my take of things

2 hours ago, EvilBird said:

I hope its great . Be nice to have a new killer Cat chassis available. Even I would consider one and I haven't ridden a Cat in years. 

dear sweet lord 9lb 8oz baby Jesus... please get evilbird off that hideous haybaler with it's non binding suspension gadgets, handicapped shopping cart full of carry on luggage and gizmos utterly bound to fall and allow him not to be eaten by wolves and polar bears without Northstar Rick on his satellite phone's speed dial... 

1 hour ago, Premium said:

The spirit of this sentence is what made me take a hard look at Textron's Arctic Cat.  As Cat guys we always kind of had a chip on our shoulder. The little company that did the most with the least. The die-hards from other brands regularly took shots on the Cat guys out of a mixture of their own brand loyalty and a tangible bit of envy.

Not so anymore. The envy is gone and pity has taken its place.

That change was a wake-up call to me and I have zero issues making my thoughts known about Textron's handling of the brand.

end of sermon, drop the mic and see if it fails or succeeds. 

 

[Premium]

30 minutes ago, Crnr2Crnr said:

end of sermon, drop the mic and see if it fails or succeeds. 

 

No promises on future rants but for now I digress

[Not greg b]

48 minutes ago, AK440 said:

Hopefully Textron is realizing the mistakes it made with the brand and is now correcting them. Only having two OEMs to choose from sucks. 

They won’t. They will bring out something that works well and won’t change again for another 15 years when they are behind the 8 ball again. It’s how they roll.

[Premium]

6 minutes ago, Not greg b said:

They won’t. They will bring out something that works well and won’t change again for another 15 years when they are behind the 8 ball again. It’s how they roll.

You forgot slapping TEXTRON SNOW on the side

[Crnr2Crnr]

17 minutes ago, Not greg b said:

They won’t. They will bring out something that works well and won’t change again for another 15 years when they are behind the 8 ball again. It’s how they roll.

like you would know... 

but, you actually know 

you getting something to ride this winter or just planning to abuse the Jag, your dad's XC or whichever sled I show up with unless you can borrow the demo sled?   

 

[Palu49]

10 hours ago, Premium said:

And it is very possible that this chassis does bring something magical that numbers alone don't convey.

Or, that over a few model years it proves to be just a little bit faster, a little bit more durable, a little bit more fun to ride etc vs the competition. But will that be enough to revive the brand?

It may be enough to get people who haven’t bought a new cat in a while to buy one, it might be enough to get people who switched from cat to get back, maybe have a few polaris guys try it but you’ll never pull diehards off poo or especially doo. Ski doo sells the most sleds year in and year out and they offer the worst platform for anyone that wants to ride more than putzing around from bar to bar. I know a lot of those doo die hards and they’ll tell you how bad cat and poo sleds are but absolutely will not try one out to have a real world comparison.

3 hours ago, mnstang said:

It'd be great if they can race it this year.  Sounds like they may do that in the XC mod class.

HC or Zach posted today “Zach will be piloting different arctic cat snowmobiles throughout the season” so I’m guessing catalyst will be in the open class? If he could win the class on it and the alleged demo tour goes well it could be a good shot in the arm for the Cat faithful.

[Not greg b]

55 minutes ago, Premium said:

You forgot slapping TEXTRON SNOW on the side

They usually add “a Textron company” on the bottom of all the logos. I wonder if they will live stream a 50 page power point presentation on Tuesday? Textron loves power point 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Not greg b

[mnstang]

What are all these mistakes and bad moves Textron has done?

Seriously a real life Boogeyman for alot of you guys.  About the only thing I don't like is that they slashed the model lineup quite a bit.  But aside from that I haven't seen any dramatic negative change in the company.  There's been improvements every year with the product.  Brand new ATV, new mountain sled, new engines, riot model, blast model, 2020 changes, adapt clutching, wildcat is back, now a whole new snowmobile chassis and they're working on another motor and filing for patents on stuff.  Were you guys at haydays to see the hype or at TRF for the 60th?  I mean what the fuck you guys just eat the same shit you're all regurgitating and think it's all true because that's the bubble you've made.  You guys make it sound like they're burning it all to the ground?  I'd say things are way better right now than when Textron purchased Cat. 

They are definitely trying alot of things.  They've only been in the picture for around 5 years, you don't just buy a giant and complex manufacturing company and hit the ground running.  Textron has to evaluate EVERYTHING, make whatever adjustments, come up with direction of what they want to do, get some of their people in there, start new processes, implement their changes, it's alot and it's probably a delicate thing to handle doing.  And it's not just in final product that we see it's day to day stuff in TRF, at the factory, supply chain and supplier stuff, everything.  Oh and they don't have multiple massive stop sale recalls I guess no credit for that but they're still the worst ever because that's the popular internet narrative to go with.  I don't see it.  And no matter what any haters say the Arctic Cat snowmobile is still a race winning and championship winning machine so it's laughable what people make it out to be.  Everyone has their personal preferences but I don't know how anyone can claim how it's so incredibly bad when it is extremely competitive in cross country racing.  People I guess take all that stuff for granted.  Kind of like how they've also had the fastest production snowmobile for like 30 years we don't talk about that either.. 

[Premium]

23 minutes ago, mnstang said:

What are all these mistakes and bad moves Textron has done?

Seriously a real life Boogeyman for alot of you guys.  About the only thing I don't like is that they slashed the model lineup quite a bit.  But aside from that I haven't seen any dramatic negative change in the company.  There's been improvements every year with the product.  Brand new ATV, new mountain sled, new engines, riot model, blast model, 2020 changes, adapt clutching, wildcat is back, now a whole new snowmobile chassis and they're working on another motor and filing for patents on stuff.  Were you guys at haydays to see the hype or at TRF for the 60th?  I mean what the fuck you guys just eat the same shit you're all regurgitating and think it's all true because that's the bubble you've made.  You guys make it sound like they're burning it all to the ground?  I'd say things are way better right now than when Textron purchased Cat. 

They are definitely trying alot of things.  They've only been in the picture for around 5 years, you don't just buy a giant and complex manufacturing company and hit the ground running.  Textron has to evaluate EVERYTHING, make whatever adjustments, come up with direction of what they want to do, get some of their people in there, start new processes, implement their changes, it's alot and it's probably a delicate thing to handle doing.  And it's not just in final product that we see it's day to day stuff in TRF, at the factory, supply chain and supplier stuff, everything.  Oh and they don't have multiple massive stop sale recalls I guess no credit for that but they're still the worst ever because that's the popular internet narrative to go with.  I don't see it.  And no matter what any haters say the Arctic Cat snowmobile is still a race winning and championship winning machine so it's laughable what people make it out to be.  Everyone has their personal preferences but I don't know how anyone can claim how it's so incredibly bad when it is extremely competitive in cross country racing.  People I guess take all that stuff for granted.  Kind of like how they've also had the fastest production snowmobile for like 30 years we don't talk about that either.. 

Well let's see:

Hype for the 60th?? You must be joking. The heat from the Cat faithful was fierce enough to actually motivate Textron (after the fact) to produce some 60th memorabilia.

Dropping the Cat name on the dirt side immediately (wow, that's arrogance)

When that failed they rebranded the ATV line as Tracker (smart business move to be fair). Doesn't mean anything for Cat tho

Hocked their aviation pedigree to the masses, but none of their corporate transplants know a damn thing about snowmobiles

Eviscerated the dealer network.  I looked recently, there used to be twice the dealers in my vicinity in the last 5 years

Continuous loss of athletes

Elimination of racers and employees that brought real impact to the brand

Outsourced clothing for both Arcticwear and Motorfist

No emphasis on innovation

Pushed single cylinder 400s down everyone's throat that no one asked for and for prices that were 1-2k too high

Corporate transplants had to reference  "market impacts" off of an ipad on sledding's biggest stage

Shall I go on???

 

And all there is to show for it is a new chassis that's arguably 2 years too late and it's only available with a 600.  LOL

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Premium

[Not greg b]

1 hour ago, mnstang said:

What are all these mistakes and bad moves Textron has done?

Seriously a real life Boogeyman for alot of you guys.  About the only thing I don't like is that they slashed the model lineup quite a bit.  But aside from that I haven't seen any dramatic negative change in the company.  There's been improvements every year with the product.  Brand new ATV, new mountain sled, new engines, riot model, blast model, 2020 changes, adapt clutching, wildcat is back, now a whole new snowmobile chassis and they're working on another motor and filing for patents on stuff.  Were you guys at haydays to see the hype or at TRF for the 60th?  I mean what the fuck you guys just eat the same shit you're all regurgitating and think it's all true because that's the bubble you've made.  You guys make it sound like they're burning it all to the ground?  I'd say things are way better right now than when Textron purchased Cat. 

They are definitely trying alot of things.  They've only been in the picture for around 5 years, you don't just buy a giant and complex manufacturing company and hit the ground running.  Textron has to evaluate EVERYTHING, make whatever adjustments, come up with direction of what they want to do, get some of their people in there, start new processes, implement their changes, it's alot and it's probably a delicate thing to handle doing.  And it's not just in final product that we see it's day to day stuff in TRF, at the factory, supply chain and supplier stuff, everything.  Oh and they don't have multiple massive stop sale recalls I guess no credit for that but they're still the worst ever because that's the popular internet narrative to go with.  I don't see it.  And no matter what any haters say the Arctic Cat snowmobile is still a race winning and championship winning machine so it's laughable what people make it out to be.  Everyone has their personal preferences but I don't know how anyone can claim how it's so incredibly bad when it is extremely competitive in cross country racing.  People I guess take all that stuff for granted.  Kind of like how they've also had the fastest production snowmobile for like 30 years we don't talk about that either.. 

after dealing with Textron most of my adult life, including my family being a partner in a dealership, me selling their products for 10 years, my friend’s owning dealer ships, and a few of my customers being current cat dealers. they are doing exactly to arctic cat what they have done to every other weak company they buy. The biggest problem with cat is lack of leadership and customer support on the dealership end. They have gutted that company big time like they always have done and throw people in as temp job until the job on the aerospace side opens. It’s a revolving door of mid and upper management. The lady in charge is a prime example of it. Her back ground is aero space and she is very intelligent. I don’t see her being at her role in cat much longer before she moves some place else. Her haydays speech screams I don’t give a shit about what happens. It’s the typical thing I have seen over the last 20+ plus years and it would not surprise me if it is for sale. The last examples of this is their corporate owned dealerships failing and them completely scrapping the Dixie chopper brand, with Alamo group buy the pieces to bring it back to life. 

[Crnr2Crnr]

great ? by MN and replies by Primo & Not 

the only thing I'll add is that they seemed to drain all the passion out of the brand itself and it's character... like a vampire or a zombie.  all the other kids were getting fun new toys and loyal Cat customers were getting corn dollies with BNG's 

[Deephaven]

They sure made me want to run further from their offering.  They've also convinced me that the reliable Cat has gone the way of the wayside and a Catalyst big bore is more than 3 years out if I want to trust it.

[Crnr2Crnr]

33 minutes ago, Deephaven said:

They sure made me want to run further from their offering.  They've also convinced me that the reliable Cat has gone the way of the wayside and a Catalyst big bore is more than 3 years out if I want to trust it.

the ctech 8000 had some issues for the first few years... that didn't help matters either.  

[mnstang]

10 hours ago, Premium said:

Well let's see:

Hype for the 60th?? You must be joking. The heat from the Cat faithful was fierce enough to actually motivate Textron (after the fact) to produce some 60th memorabilia.

Dropping the Cat name on the dirt side immediately (wow, that's arrogance)

When that failed they rebranded the ATV line as Tracker (smart business move to be fair). Doesn't mean anything for Cat tho

Hocked their aviation pedigree to the masses, but none of their corporate transplants know a damn thing about snowmobiles

Eviscerated the dealer network.  I looked recently, there used to be twice the dealers in my vicinity in the last 5 years

Continuous loss of athletes

Elimination of racers and employees that brought real impact to the brand

Outsourced clothing for both Arcticwear and Motorfist

No emphasis on innovation

Pushed single cylinder 400s down everyone's throat that no one asked for and for prices that were 1-2k too high

Corporate transplants had to reference  "market impacts" off of an ipad on sledding's biggest stage

Shall I go on???

 

And all there is to show for it is a new chassis that's arguably 2 years too late and it's only available with a 600.  LOL

 

Yes, you "shall" go on until you stop proving my point.  If those are your grievances it proves you're just looking to be pissed off.

Still waiting for the list of innovation or positive product changes in the five years leading up to Textron so we can compare to the Boogeyman.  In the meantime show us on the doll where Textron violated you.

 

9 hours ago, Not greg b said:

after dealing with Textron most of my adult life, including my family being a partner in a dealership, me selling their products for 10 years, my friend’s owning dealer ships, and a few of my customers being current cat dealers. they are doing exactly to arctic cat what they have done to every other weak company they buy. The biggest problem with cat is lack of leadership and customer support on the dealership end. They have gutted that company big time like they always have done and throw people in as temp job until the job on the aerospace side opens. It’s a revolving door of mid and upper management. The lady in charge is a prime example of it. Her back ground is aero space and she is very intelligent. I don’t see her being at her role in cat much longer before she moves some place else. Her haydays speech screams I don’t give a shit about what happens. It’s the typical thing I have seen over the last 20+ plus years and it would not surprise me if it is for sale. The last examples of this is their corporate owned dealerships failing and them completely scrapping the Dixie chopper brand, with Alamo group buy the pieces to bring it back to life. 

So your problem is mostly all on the corporate and business end of things.  I can understand that given your history with other relations you've had.  I guess me as a consumer really don't care about the corporate side of things, I feel like there's always going to be some douchy stuff going on at the top.  Do I love that there's a chick there with no sled background, I don't love it.. but at some point they're just a business manager and they really don't need that.  How about that jean Claude Jordan Pierre douchebag or whatever his name was that made the stocks looked real good so he could cash out and leave town before it all crashed?  That was under ARCTIC CAT pre Textron.  I'm just saying.  I think and know things could be better on that end, but you could say that about any scenario, short of Roger Skime coming back and buying the entire company lol.  But from an overall perspective, I think Cat is doing much better things NOW and in a better business position than when they were before Textron bought them.  But people still say Textron is the worst thing ever.  It gives a name and identity for the Boogeyman or devil for people to be tribal against.  Just say the name, Textron.  It's a good devil name.  Textron.  Oooooo.  Textron!  TEXTRON!!  See it's a great name to be scared of I'll admit.  Just look at that premium guy he's unhinged apparently devil Textron shoved a 400cc single down his throat?  TDS is real.  Textron derangement syndrome.  People who are looking to be triggered will always find ways to get triggered.  And that's a fact.

I talked to Tom Rowland for an hour this summer at his place.  We talked about all kinds of things and I wasn't going to bring up Textron but he did and I'm not going to say everything he said but he would sometimes have his doubts about how things are going and the future but there was a moment that he bought in and believes they are really trying to make this work.  And this is a guy who lives and breathes this stuff, probably the top recognizable "Arctic Cat guy" there is right now.  Also I get your past with other companies and all that but there's also always a second side to every story.  I'm pretty sure they didn't buy cat to run cat into the ground.  .... unless they really are the devil.

 

Textron Textron Textron!

[krom]

11 minutes ago, mnstang said:

Yes, you "shall" go on until you stop proving my point.  If those are your grievances it proves you're just looking to be pissed off.

Still waiting for the list of innovation or positive product changes in the five years leading up to Textron so we can compare to the Boogeyman.  In the meantime show us on the doll where Textron violated you.

 

So your problem is mostly all on the corporate and business end of things.  I can understand that given your history with other relations you've had.  I guess me as a consumer really don't care about the corporate side of things, I feel like there's always going to be some douchy stuff going on at the top.  Do I love that there's a chick there with no sled background, I don't love it.. but at some point they're just a business manager and they really don't need that.  How about that jean Claude Jordan Pierre douchebag or whatever his name was that made the stocks looked real good so he could cash out and leave town before it all crashed?  That was under ARCTIC CAT pre Textron.  I'm just saying.  I think and know things could be better on that end, but you could say that about any scenario, short of Roger Skime coming back and buying the entire company lol.  But from an overall perspective, I think Cat is doing much better things NOW and in a better business position than when they were before Textron bought them.  But people still say Textron is the worst thing ever.  It gives a name and identity for the Boogeyman or devil for people to be tribal against.  Just say the name, Textron.  It's a good devil name.  Textron.  Oooooo.  Textron!  TEXTRON!!  See it's a great name to be scared of I'll admit.  Just look at that premium guy he's unhinged apparently devil Textron shoved a 400cc single down his throat?  TDS is real.  Textron derangement syndrome.  People who are looking to be triggered will always find ways to get triggered.  And that's a fact.

I talked to Tom Rowland for an hour this summer at his place.  We talked about all kinds of things and I wasn't going to bring up Textron but he did and I'm not going to say everything he said but he would sometimes have his doubts about how things are going and the future but there was a moment that he bought in and believes they are really trying to make this work.  And this is a guy who lives and breathes this stuff, probably the top recognizable "Arctic Cat guy" there is right now.  Also I get your past with other companies and all that but there's also always a second side to every story.  I'm pretty sure they didn't buy cat to run cat into the ground.  .... unless they really are the devil.

 

Textron Textron Textron!

Textron has not released anything under their ownership, so far it was all developed before their take over.  They also shelved countless projects, including the snowbike.

1 easy example, they stood on the stage at the dealer meeting during the takover process and promised exciting new products every 6 months, including the XX in 2 and 4 seat, turbo and NA versions.

Only 1 of those 4 machines ever made it to production, the rest where scrapped, along with the majority of their dirt line.

They pushed hot and heavy on the havox/stampeede, did 0 marketing, then scrapped them just as the market was starting to show interest.

They canceled almost every dealer within 50 miles of a basspro/tracker to make sure that the tracker units would sell (and sell them with a lower msrp than ac dealers paid for the same machine)

They refused to ship any units to ac dealers to be sure bass pro was overflowing with machines.

[Premium]

57 minutes ago, mnstang said:

But people still say Textron is the worst thing ever.  It gives a name and identity for the Boogeyman or devil for people to be tribal against.  Just say the name, Textron.  It's a good devil name.  Textron.  Oooooo.  Textron!  TEXTRON!!  See it's a great name to be scared of I'll admit.  Just look at that premium guy he's unhinged apparently devil Textron shoved a 400cc single down his throat?  TDS is real.  Textron derangement syndrome.  People who are looking to be triggered will always find ways to get triggered.  And that's a fact.

 

Textron Textron Textron!

 

TDS that's actually hilarious

 

It is actually possible that Textron has improved Cat's bottom line AND completely botched its handling of the brand, its perception, and its presence.

It is actually possible to want to see Cat do well AND criticize its parent company.

 

I've said before the game has changed.  All brands are now divisions of billion dollar parent companies. How these companies handle these sled brands matters.

[Crnr2Crnr]

idk why people don't believe in the boogeyman tbh... 

[EvilBird]

11 hours ago, Not greg b said:

after dealing with Textron most of my adult life, including my family being a partner in a dealership, me selling their products for 10 years, my friend’s owning dealer ships, and a few of my customers being current cat dealers. they are doing exactly to arctic cat what they have done to every other weak company they buy. The biggest problem with cat is lack of leadership and customer support on the dealership end. They have gutted that company big time like they always have done and throw people in as temp job until the job on the aerospace side opens. It’s a revolving door of mid and upper management. The lady in charge is a prime example of it. Her back ground is aero space and she is very intelligent. I don’t see her being at her role in cat much longer before she moves some place else. Her haydays speech screams I don’t give a shit about what happens. It’s the typical thing I have seen over the last 20+ plus years and it would not surprise me if it is for sale. The last examples of this is their corporate owned dealerships failing and them completely scrapping the Dixie chopper brand, with Alamo group buy the pieces to bring it back to life. 

I saw this with Triumph boats as a dealer after Textron acquired them....ran a solid unique company into the ground by shitty marketing, bad management , then sold em , but at that point it was a wrap for the brand they never recovered. 

Edited December 3, 2022 by EvilBird

[Premium]

3 minutes ago, EvilBird said:

I saw this with Triumph boats as a dealer after Textron acquired them....ran a solid unique company into the ground by shitty marketing, bad management , then sold em , but at that point it was a wrap for the brand they never recovered. 

Whoa whoa whoa, pump the brakes there chief.... you mean to tell me, that Textron mishandled a company they acquired!? Proposterous!

[mnstang]

44 minutes ago, krom said:

Textron has not released anything under their ownership, so far it was all developed before their take over.  

Textron released all of it under their ownership.

But I think I understand what you are trying to say.  You are trying to say everything they've released was not thought up or designed or engineered during the time they owned Cat.  That all the changes they've done in the last 5 years was fully developed and ready to be sold as product with the push of a button and cat was just waiting to do that.  That they had a team roller clutch ready, and it's ADAPT replacement ready, at the same time!  That they had the ctec800 ready and it's replacement the gen 2 ctec800 ready, at the same time.   Hmmm?  

It would also then mean that everything you guys have complained about since Textron ownership, is actually pre-textron-ac's fault.

Unless of course you want to have it both ways.  Because devil Boogeyman.

The sucky things are all Textron fault, and the good things are all from pre-textron.  It was the ghost of Edgar Heteen that snuck into TRF and pushed the red launch button on all these projects that were done and waiting to go.  Except the ones that didn't turn out good!!!  Those were asshole Textron's doing, of course!

And we won't talk about what would have happened to Cat if Textron didn't buy the company.  We know things were going real well at that time but evil Textron swooped in just to kill the American dream.

FFS I'm not some Textron guy but someone needs to push back on you people that are unhinged and clearly have the biased glasses on.  Seriously the TDS thing compared to the original TDS, is very similar in all the ways.  FFS we have this new and exciting CATALYST platform that is the buzz of the industry that dominated the excitement at haydays and we are still bitching how Textron is evil.i suppose the catalyst was a fully finished product in 2017 too?  Even though it still isn't finished today.  What we saw at haydays was exactly how it was left off before Textron.  

 

[mnstang]

12 minutes ago, Premium said:

Whoa whoa whoa, pump the brakes there chief.... you mean to tell me, that Textron mishandled a company they acquired!? Proposterous!

Oh shit it's actually gen 2 Boogeyman... Maybe Textron is actually a vampire and they survive by taking over these companies and sucking the blood out of them til they're dry and then move on.  Holy shit guys!!  VAMPIRE!!!  Get your silver bullets ready for vampire Textron!  Coming to kill your companies!

[Crnr2Crnr]

that's an interesting snowmobile...