Herters 440
VINTAGE SNOWMOBILE
OF THE WEEK - AUGUST 19-2002
Thanks Jim for
the great Photo
1970 POLORON - TORNADO
WOW!!--What a machine!-1969
Mercury 250E
Thanks
Heidi + Jim for the great Photo!
1972 WHEEL HORSE
1974 YAMAHA - TL 433F
1975 Suzuki Fury
Thanks
Jim Doran for the great picture!
| INFO
- OCT 18 - 02
I was web surfing on the vintage snowmobile site and came across your Fury 440. I had two at one time and from my understanding this was the sled that led Arctic Cat to use Suzuki engines. The story I heard was that Arctic Cat had many warranty issues with the Kawasaki powerplants and was looking for a new engine supplier. They approached Suzuki and said that their requirements for their El Tigre sled was that it had to remain the fastest in the industry as it had in the past. Suzuki responded with a "no problem" but we need a chassis to handle the horsepower because at that time they did not have a proper chassis. The end result was the Suzuki Fury 440 which was a rebadged El Tigre with a 62hp Suzuki 440 F/A engine. It had some trick features such as: twin expansion chambers, ram-air air box and velocity stacks on the mouth of the carburetors. The Suzuki Fury was one of the fastest if not the fastest for the 1975 model year and was only available that year. This is how Arct! ! ic Cat came to use Suzuki powerplants and so from then on Suzuki decided to be a Snowmobile engine supplier and not a manufacturer of snowmobiles. Thanks Kevin Kochanski for this information NEW UPDATE : FEB 28 - 03 - Thanks Claude Gendron for this information! Suzuki Fury: new info Oct 18, the sled that led Arctic-Cat to use Suzuki engines " This might have help Arctic-Cat in there decision to use Suzuki engine in lieu of Kawasaki, but don't forget that Kawasaki in the same period wanted to produce their own machine with their own engine which might have been in short supply for Arctic-Cat. After having bought out Sno*Jet in 1976 for it's already established dealership network. Kawasaki introduced it's own Kawasaki/Sno*Jet for 1977 with Kawasaki engines in the Astro and yes with the venerable Yamaha engines in the SST. For 1978 their snowmobiles were "all "Kawasaki except their Inviter, Intriguer and Drifter models which were manufactured by .....Arctic-Cat until 1981. |
| ALSO
NEW INFO - OCT 31 - 02 On the Fury, it was built by Arctic Cat for the 1975 year only. About 3500 were made. Basically it was an El Tigre of a different type and look. The Fury motor was a High Output Suzuki. I think it had triple Transfer Ports, Dual Carbs and Dual Pipes. 60HP - APPROXIMATELY Now think of this. Arctic Cat was still using the Kawasaki motor 440 in the El Tigre. Dual carb, single pipe aprox 50HP. You took your new "bad" El Tigre out for a ride and get blown away by a knock off Suzuki!!! HA. Now Cat still had there Z to run but that was not as much a consumer sled as the El Tigre. The next year 76 Cat went to Suzuki Motors and went with a torquer motor the 500 F/A and a single pipe 55HP approx. to keep the noise down. So the Fury was a unique one year sled.. Thanks Brian for this information! |
1970 VIKING
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ANY CONTRIBUTION IS GREATLY APPRECIATED. THANKS - DAVID |
