There’s been a lot of speculation about the new “top secret” chassis from Arctic Cat currently under development.
The fact is, the company made almost no changes to its product line last year and Cat fans are absolutely rabid to find out what’s up.
The Cat brass make no bones about the fact 2012 will be a big year for Arctic Cat with some significant changes to its model line-up. Here’s what we think:
There’s been some disappointment in the ranks that a new, extremely lightweight chassis based on the Sno-Pro 500 and 600 race platform has not materialized.
Truthfully, with some minor re-fabricating (ie: lengthening the engine cradle area of the sled) this would be a stellar foundation to build a slew of high performance 2-strokes and even 4-strokes around.
The current Twin Spar chassis is in its fifth iteration and the Crossfire is also long in the tooth. With different track lengths, the modified race chassis could serve the mountain, crossover and trail marketplace adequately.
We think Cat is looking at rationalizing its model lineup like Ski-Doo has with its XP chassis and, to a lesser extent, Polaris with its new Pro-R platform.
It’s way cheaper to build all your products on the same chassis with different engines than to build several completely different platforms and, when you’ve already beaten the weight formula, why start over?
