Artic Cat

Artic Cat

Arctic Cat is a North American manufacturer of snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles. The company is based in Thief River Falls, MN. Arctic Cat, also known as "snow cats", is best known for their series of ZR snowmobile models which utilized two stroke motors in the early to late 1990s. Most ZR's and ZL's were replaced in 2003 by the Firecat series, derived from their 2002 championship sled. It was derived from the "Skinny Mini" prototype sled. The prototype sled had features different from other sleds at that time, by utilizing parts that provided more than one role and a track that was had less width then other sleds, reducing rotating mass.

These sleds featured a laydown type engine, which was centered low in the sled to centralize mass. Well known sleds of this time include the Arctic Cat Firecat F7, a 700cc two stroke with 140 horsepower. High speeds were possible with this sled because of the efficiency of the chassis due in part to the smaller width of the track. Big changes were made to the lineup for the 2007 model year a new chassis was introduced which was called a twin-spar chassis replacing all previous models while added a new 4 stroke engine, the Z1 Jaguar. It featured a 1100cc 4-stroke parallel twin. In 2009 the Z1 was turbocharged to produce 177 horsepower (132 kW), which is 20 horsepower (15 kW) more than any other production snowmobile.[2] The Crossfire and M-series remain on the same M-series chassis which is a spinoff from the original Firecat Chassis.

Artic Cat