With all the chat about Textron and Cat, I got to thinking about Polaris years under Textron in the 70s. My first sled memory was Dad's '77 tx 440, with the funky blue windshield.  I was 3 when I got to go for my first ride.  We got just past my grandparent's property in Rockford and dad hit a snow drift, then the sled died. It was its first run.  I still remember him pulling it over and over and asking me if it had bumped the kill switch lol ........ we ended up walking all the way back to the farm house, and for a 3 yr old it was a long walk.  needless to say Dad got a friend to help him load it onto the trailer and took it back to Wheeler Sports in Breslau ON Turns out the main stator electrical connector was never "fully" connected from the factory and when we hit the drift it disconnected. lol  funny how despite a bad first experience in the sport I instantly fell in love with it.  I was digging through my archives and found this add i kept.  I hated hearing Yamaha is out and now it doesn't look so great for Cat now either. I hope like Polaris, Cat management can take ownership of the company and keep it going, their new line up appears to be a real competitive product.

Need to go back to the grass roots small dealers again.   Thats the market, you have to build back, but start over again.   The “marina” on our lake, which is now limited to gas, candy, worms and swag, was a full scale boat and AC dealer at one time.   all gone, reduced to a pump.   bigger is not always better

I agree, the large format in this industry is not helping out the dealers at all.  I can see why BRP would want that though with their extensive offerings. What good is a product with out the support, cannot see how a manufacture can be this short sighted.  However I have heard the lack of Cat dealers is far more magnified in Canada vs the USA, plus if I’m not mistaken some of  the USA dealers offer more than one sled manufacture - which if you can support that instead, why not….especially since I thought Cat moved towards only building what was ordered a few years ago vs. flooding the market with inventory just because. 

I can’t see them going the way of the dodo bird either and it really makes sense for CF to make the purchase.  

Arctic Cat followed the big store model and push huge inventories on little dealers.  They wanted big showrooms and lots of accessories   Local dealer at cottage was dropped because of space for retail.   And he couldn’t take the volume of sleds they wanted to push.   Unfortunately I think the small dealer is way that industry needs to go for service coverage in some areas.