Arctic Cat to be acquired by Textron for $247 Million.

[sxr70001]

As long as were just speculating, Maybe Yamaha will buy the rights to the sled business and get all Arctic Cat's chassis patents and start building their own sleds over here.

 

[johnnysnowking]

As long as were just speculating, Maybe Yamaha will buy the rights to the sled business and get all Arctic Cat's chassis patents and start building their own sleds over here.

I was just on the Department of Defense website it's not speculation


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[sxr70001]

I was just on the Department of Defense website it's not speculation


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm not saying the sale of Cat is speculation. Just speculating on Yamaha's future. Cheers!

 

[yamajammer76]

I just read this from another message board...

"I've got the inside information on this. All the Arctic Cat SxS and ATVs will be re-branded as Bad Boy Off Road, Textron's premier consumer powersports brand."

If true it looks like they will be splitting the dirt products away from the sleds. I guess that's not all bad since the Arctic Cat name has never made a lot of sense on a dirt off-road product.

 

[Farmer 73]

I just read this from another message board...

"I've got the inside information on this. All the Arctic Cat SxS and ATVs will be re-branded as Bad Boy Off Road, Textron's premier consumer powersports brand."

If true it looks like they will be splitting the dirt products away from the sleds. I guess that's not all bad since the Arctic Cat name has never made a lot of sense on a dirt off-road product.

So what will they do then with the Artic Cat name? I don't think the sled division is that profitable! It just don't make sense for them to keep it going. If Yamaha stays in the sled buisness, it could be where they buy Cat's sled division and build both for a while. Making Cat there 2 stroke division and Yamaha the 4 stroke division.

 

[20/80]

So what will they do then with the Artic Cat name? I don't think the sled division is that profitable! It just don't make sense for them to keep it going. If Yamaha stays in the sled buisness, it could be where they buy Cat's sled division and build both for a while. Making Cat there 2 stroke division and Yamaha the 4 stroke division.

Its sad to see any sled company possibly on the chopping block no matter the brand, Cat has played a big role in the snowmobile industry over the years pushing its competitors on the trails, mountains, race tracks and has taken a few checkered flags in its day, Yamaha has ties with them and this may be a turning point for their in house built sleds, Textron is after its sxs, atv, manufacturing facilities the sled division is on wanted baggage and they will break it up and sell it off, this is where Yamaha may or maynot play a role, Textron did this with Polaris back in the day, Polaris employees I believe bought Polaris back before Textron sold it off, something else that I find kinda strange is for the last couple of years I have seen Badboy buggies for sale in a couple of Yamaha dealerships, maybe something is up with that? maybe.... we have it all wrong.

 

[FourIsMore]

I mentioned in a post over a month ago that Yamaha put motors in Sno Jets and then Sno Jet went away so now it looks like you can get ready to say good-by to Cat also. Yamaha is a leader in four strokes and can certainly build a good chassie on there own maybe they knew that cat was being bought out and they started to work on the carbon fiber sled because of that. One can only dream. GO YAMAHA

 

[Mooseman]

Hmmmmm. I wonder if Yamaha got some sort of advance notice for opening their North American office in TO? That would be a long time to keep such a secret though. If Yamaha was getting out of the snowmobile business, they wouldn't have done that and with this sale, I can see Textron splitting the sled biz and selling it to Yamaha. In this scenario, unfortunately for Cat lovers, the name will likely disappear as it is usually the buyer's name that is kept, just like all the others that have been bought out.

 

[yamajammer76]

Hmmmmm. I wonder if Yamaha got some sort of advance notice for opening their North American office in TO? That would be a long time to keep such a secret though. If Yamaha was getting out of the snowmobile business, they wouldn't have done that and with this sale, I can see Textron splitting the sled biz and selling it to Yamaha. In this scenario, unfortunately for Cat lovers, the name will likely disappear as it is usually the buyer's name that is kept, just like all the others that have been bought out.

It's possible that Textron could split off the sled business and combining it with Yamaha could make a profitable entity. I would expect in such a scenario for Yamaha to retain the Arctic Cat brand (if Textron licenses it to them) for 2 Strokes and Yamaha brand for 4 Strokes. Of course this means production would need to be moved to a Yamaha facility. The patents alone would be worth a lot of money.

I'm not sure what is going to happen. Looking back at it we always assumed that Yamaha would want Cat, but really the only piece of Cat that is of value to them is the snowmobile division. Even getting approval to buy the whole thing would have been hard with the product overlap probably forcing them to divest certain business units.

I just don't see how Textron can make the sled unit turn a profit without spinning it off to another sledmaker. Maybe Yamaha just gets out of sleds, but they have done a few things like the new 998 Turbo and setting up a new Snowmobile division that suggests otherwise. A true Yamaha-Cat unit could actually compete well with Polaris and BRP and if ran right could put them on top again.

Oh well it's fun to dream...

 

[Mooseman]

What you have to remember is that by having a North American office and a plant in the US (Thief River), this would become a wholly North American entity. Because neither Canada or the US have any trade agreements with Japan, those sleds built there have tariffs added. This could make them more competitive with the NA sleds.

 

[SumpBuster]

How I missed this....it's very disturbing. No cat fan for sure, but they have contributed greatly to our sport. Let's face it, ski doo sucked for years in the 80' s til the mxz''s of the late 90's. Great engines but strange (prs) oval track suspensions on bumpy trails. It took them many years to be competitive on trails. Cat had a loyal following unlike any other.
I hope it has a happy ending.

 

[yamajammer76]

One thing I was just thinking about is the fact Textron has been pretty open to building SBS's for other companies like New Holland, Case IH, etc. so I don't see the Yamaha-Cat partnership going away just because Textron bought them.