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Arctic Cat is in Thief River Falls. My old inside rep there called it Tough Rubber Balls.
Yeah, but Lake Winnipeg sure is beautiful! (at least it was when I was there about 40 years ago...during the summer!)
Arctic Cat could thrive if they could get some decent management. The crew that was there when I became a dealer was just a good old boys network, with tons of dead wood, and they were just milking it. Chris Twomey was the CEO for something like 20 years, and he was a very nice man, he actually visited our store frequently, as he wintered in AZ, but he was on cruise control. When he retired they hired an azzhat from S-c-u-m Despot who ran roughshod over everything, and caused QC issues that put the damper on some pivotal product launches. He was given the golden parachute, and they hired an MBA "troubleshooter" type who talked a good game, but was really there to shine things up for selling. Then, along came the absolute morons from Textron, all bluster and bravado, bragging on their aviation business, etc. In reality, another bunch of MBA dolts from E-Z-Go who knew nothing about the off road industry. They have just about run it into the ground, and destroyed the dealer base.
delete
One word, solyndra. They tried literally using tax dollars to run a company because it was "green". One company took 535 million tax dollars and within a year went bankrupt, why, because china didnt want competition and tanked the price of something they control polysilicon. Now, out gov't put another shot across chinas manufacturing with that chip money, just sit back and watch the show of what happens next. Free markets beat state run markets, proving over and over and not even that long ago examples why not to do this. If you want to battle China, end trade with them, which I am ok with. But, if you thought solyndra was a ish show, just wait to what comes over the next few years. Wanna make a bunch of money, start a chip company right now, take what you can, after you get it declare bankruptcy in a day, boom you are rich just like the board of solyndra. There might be hope you say for the kids, but it wont come from the people running stuff now.
One of the best buys i ever had was back in the early 80's,the local Artic Cat dealer had a 6,000 El Tigre come in on trade because nobody could get it to start,sled had 90 miles on it. I offered the dealer $500 for it,and they took it.On the way home i stopped at the local carwash and washed the hell out of it,then decided to see if it'd start,2 pulls on the rope and it fired right up.Got it home ran a new chassis ground,and the sled ran perfect,rode it all winter,then sold it in the spring for $3,000,best deal i ever had on a sled,lol. Never took a sled to that dealer to fix after that,as his mechanics sucked when they couldn't find a bad ground,lol
(Since this an oil thread, you better mention "oil" in your comment or you'll get sent to the penalty box!)
The good old Purple Panther Pisss,lol
My Dad was a Sno-Jet dealer back in the real early 70's,before you were required to have a store front,so we had Sno-jets till the mid 70's,after that he bought Artic Cats,my Uncle swore by Ski-Doo's,the neighbours down the road ran nothing but Polaris,and my cousin bought nothing but Rupp's.The good old days,when every small town in the snow belt regions had several differant varieties of snowmobile dealers,lol
In the early days they were all 2 strokes,the good old days of mixing 2 stroke oil and gas at -30 to go sledding,lol. Some were aircooled,some were fan cooled,wasn't till the 80's before you started seeing liquid cooling,but they were still 2 strokes. Wasn't uncommon to throw new pistons and rings in once or twice a season,especially on Polaris's,their air cooled TX's were piston eaters
I remember Dad paying $1,095.00 Canuck,out the door for a brand new Artic Cat 400 Cheetah in 1975,and the dealer threw in a snowmobile suit/helmut and a case of 2 stroke oil on the deal.My Mom had told my Dad nobody was riding it,unless they had a helmut on,so he had to get a helmut,lol
