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Arctic Cat is a company that has been through hell and back. In 1954 Edgar Hetteen and his partners David Johnson and Allan Hetteen conceived an ingenious idea to establish a snowmobile business known as Polaris Industries. The company picked up impressively managing to branch into other facets of the business including ATV and motorcycle lines. However, Edgar broke from the company to start his own business in 1960. He named it Polar Industries but was later changed to Arctic enterprises.

Edgar and his team embarked on a quest for success that gave birth to design ingenuity of snowmobiles and ATVs. 1960 was the year that saw the first production of the first Arctic Cat snowmobile. The business had such tremendous success that it began expanding its line of production further into watercrafts and winter apparel. Things were moving smoothly - but only for a while.

The firm encountered some turbulent times shortly after 1980, forcing it to file for bankruptcy. Inevitably, production was fully halted in 1982. However, the business refused to throw in the towel, reincarnating as Arctco. The new company was established to continue the production of Arctic Cat snowmobiles. With business picking up, Arctco adopted Arctic Cat as its business name in 1996.

Under the new management, the business produced several impeccable snowmobile design models including the Firecat, the ZR series, and the Sabercat. The 2007 Jaguar Z1 is another ingenious machine that was manufactured by the company, packing a four-stroke twin-engine with 1100cc. The engine of its 2009 counterpart has an additional 20 horsepower.

The company has also strengthened its ATV production line, manufacturing incredible machines that feature four-stroke engines fitted with completely independent suspensions. These include the 650cc and 700cc H1 models, and the 950cc H2 models.

In 2017, Arctic Cat had a change of hand in its management as Textron decided to buy the company, paying $247 million to acquire it.