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Welcome to the UTV Driver Podcast, Episode 3! This week Editor-in-Chief Zach Bowman and Executive Editor Aaron Richardson talk Arctic Cat woes, massive Kawasaki discounts just in time for the holidays, the best side-by-sides for the apocalypse, and Can-Am hitting a massive manufacturing milestone.

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Transcript
00:00Arctic Cats shuts down production, massive discounts on the Kawasaki Ridge, the best
00:05side-by-side for the apocalypse, and Can-Am has built how many Defenders?
00:09All that and more on this episode of the UTV Driver Podcast.
00:12As always, I'm Editor-in-Chief Zach Bowman, and I'm joined by Executive Editor Aaron
00:17Richardson.
00:18Aaron, it seems like you've been having a pretty good hunting season this year.
00:22What have you been up to?
00:23Yeah, that's right.
00:24I took all of last week off and spent it in the woods.
00:29Rifle season ends right around Thanksgiving this year, but we got an early start with
00:33Muzzleloader, and yeah, so far, been pretty good.
00:36Couple bucks on the ground, couple more tags to fill, so hopefully I'll get out another
00:40time or two before the family shows up for the holidays and we'll, yeah, so anyway, it's
00:45been great.
00:46Yeah, venison chili season, bud.
00:47I can't wait.
00:48Yeah.
00:49I can't wait.
00:50Yeah, yeah.
00:51All right.
00:52Well, while you've been out playing in the woods, the side-by-side world has not stopped,
00:55and we've got another kind of doom and gloom story running around.
01:00Parent company Textron, that's the parent company for Arctic Cat, shut down production
01:04and laid off a bunch of people.
01:06What is going on?
01:07Yeah, not great news, unfortunately, like the second week in a row of not awesome news,
01:13and basically what's happening is there's a lot of inventory in dealerships right now,
01:18and we've had a couple of mild winters on the spin, and Arctic Cat, as the name implies,
01:24sells a lot of snow machines, a lot of like winter sport activity vehicles, and yeah,
01:31people aren't buying as many of them just because the weather has been what it is.
01:34A couple of that with still high interest rates and just sort of the natural slowdown
01:40of people coming to dealerships to buy side-by-sides after the pandemic, and you're seeing what
01:45you're seeing across the industry a lot, which is there are just dealers that are full of
01:49inventory, not as many buyers.
01:52Pan Am has had this issue, Polaris has had this issue, they're bigger companies, so they
01:56can absorb the hit a little bit better, but with Arctic Cat, you know, and they haven't
02:02got as much, you know, they're just not as big of a company, and I think the other thing
02:06is they want to protect that core industry, the snowmobiles, and so side-by-sides were
02:12the first to go.
02:13It sounds like they laid off some ATV and side-by-side engineers over the summer, and
02:18now they're waiting until Q1 2025 to fire production back up.
02:23Which isn't that far away, you know, I mean, like, trust me, you know, if you're somebody
02:29working on the line at an Arctic Cat factory, being out of work for a month and a half,
02:33especially at the holidays, that's a tough time, but January's here, you know, I know
02:38it doesn't feel that way, but January's right around the corner.
02:42Yeah.
02:43Yeah, I don't know, it's tough.
02:45I think you're right that Arctic Cat, being a smaller manufacturer, they don't have as
02:50many dealers to sort of absorb inventory in the way that Polaris and Can-Am do, so while
02:56Can-Am can sort of keep cranking out, or Polaris can keep cranking out units and there's a
03:00place for them to go, because somebody's always got their hand raised for, you know, a new
03:04Razor or a Ranger or a Defender or whatever, maybe that's not the case for an Arctic Cat.
03:08So, you know, they obviously had to rein things in a little bit, and like we said last week,
03:13I think, you know, we're continuing to see sort of that sort of normalization, that sort
03:17of stabilization of what it looks like, because, you know, everybody wanted a side-by-side
03:22during the pandemic, because, you know, there wasn't a whole lot to do and getting out in
03:25the woods was a good time, so, you know, suddenly there were no units around.
03:30Dealers thought, holy crap, is this the new normal?
03:31They ordered a pile of machines, and all that slack had to be taken up in the manufacturing
03:37line, right?
03:38So, suppliers had to get the parts that the factories needed, the factories had to then
03:44produce the machines, and the machines got out the door.
03:46So, even though that was, you know, three, four years ago, you know, we're still sort of got
03:50this sort of bumper car effect happening as things normalize.
03:55Hopefully, in 2025, we'll see things stabilize out a little bit.
04:00Hopefully, we'll see, you know, the interest rates sort of calm down a little bit and people
04:06will be able to get their hands on rigs.
04:08But until then, it's a bummer, you know, it's a bummer.
04:12Yeah, here's hoping it straightens out.
04:14I will say this, two things occurred to me while you were saying that.
04:18One, it says in our story that one of the muckety-mucks at ArcticCat was saying that
04:24they've got so much inventory that they can probably just relabel their 2025s as 2026s.
04:30The other thing you're seeing is ArcticCat, I think, is a much more inventory-centric
04:39company where that, like, you know, you go to a Cabela's or whatever and they've got
04:42a ton of ArcticCats in there and that's sort of what they have.
04:45Whereas with Polaris and Can-Am, you're ordering them a little bit more.
04:49You know, you go into a dealer and say, okay, I want this model with these following things.
04:53So, that, like, having a ton of inventory in the dealership isn't great, but, you know,
04:58you're still having people come in and say, okay, I want this specific rig with these
05:02specific options on it.
05:03So, there's not as much, you know, it's less of a hit when you've just got stuff sitting
05:08there.
05:09Whereas, yeah, as far as I know, people aren't ordering ArcticCats, they're just going in
05:12and buying them.
05:13Yeah.
05:14Well, you know, ArcticCat's not the only company that's got a pile of units on the lot right
05:18now.
05:19Yep.
05:20Our second story here is about Kawasaki.
05:21Kawasaki, it's getting towards the end of the year.
05:24These guys typically do some sort of big sales event.
05:29Their Tis the Season sales event has some insane discounts on literally anything with
05:34the Kawasaki badge on it, but specifically side-by-sides, right?
05:39Yeah.
05:40Yeah.
05:41So, the big headline is the Ridge.
05:44They're brand new for 2024, sort of wreck-ute machine.
05:49You can get $3,000 off on one of those things, right?
05:53So, how does the Ridge start at?
05:54It's less than $30,000.
05:55Yeah, yeah.
05:56It's way less than $30,000.
05:57I think it's...
05:58Imagine being able to go into a Ford dealer and get 10% off an F-150.
06:02Yeah.
06:03Yeah.
06:04That is a pile of money.
06:05More than that.
06:06You know?
06:07Yeah.
06:08Yeah.
06:09And when you start talking about...
06:10The Ridge is like a pretty affordable...
06:13When you start putting on electric windows and HVAC and all that jazz, they're still...
06:19They're real competitive with Can-Ams and Polarises in that ilk.
06:23But when you knock $3,000 off that, you've got a big bargain on your hands.
06:28Yeah, absolutely.
06:29That's not the only rig that they've discounted.
06:31You can get a Tarex for two grand off, which is, again...
06:34Two grand off a Tarex?
06:36Yeah.
06:3710% discount.
06:38You get $1,000 off of a Mule Pro, which is like a brand new rig.
06:42Yep, exactly.
06:43It's also...
06:44It's telling, though, right?
06:46The Mule Pro is the least discounted of all of those models.
06:49It's like the least sexy, but it's also the least discounted, which tells you where Kawasaki
06:54sells...
06:55Makes all their bread and butter on these things, right?
06:57Yeah.
06:58They're selling a ton of Mules.
07:00There's not as much reason to discount them.
07:02I don't know.
07:03That's kind of me reading between the lines a little bit, but still...
07:06Well, that's true across the board.
07:09We are...
07:10Clearly, we are guilty of getting all hot and bothered about sport rigs, but the reality
07:14is utility machines are what the side-by-side industry runs on, right?
07:19Later we'll talk about how many K&M Defenders K&M's cranked out since that machine debuted,
07:25but for the most part, the side-by-side industry is powered by guys just trying to get work
07:30done, which is why you're not seeing massive discounts on the Mule Pro.
07:35Yeah.
07:36But...
07:37The other thing about this discount, sorry, we should have mentioned this to kick off.
07:41They're offering 0% on some of these rigs for six months.
07:44Dude.
07:45So the interest rate is going to go up after six months, but 0% is unheard of unless it's
07:51like...
07:52You can get 3% on a Toyota, but they're also doing other loan terms that are like 3.95
07:58for 60 months, which over the last two years has just not been a thing.
08:01Yeah, dude.
08:02I think my...
08:03The last time I looked at my local credit union, a loan for side-by-side was somewhere
08:07around 9% with pretty decent credit.
08:10So if you're talking a third of that, that's pretty serious savings in your pocket over
08:14the term of that loan.
08:15Yeah, that is an absolute pile of money.
08:18Yeah, that's absolutely wild.
08:20Yeah, so, you know, hey, tis the season, as they say, and if you're looking to stick something
08:25green under your Christmas tree this year, you might want to head on down to the Kawasaki
08:29dealer because that kind of cash off, that's a lot of gas, that's three grand off.
08:35That's a whole trailer.
08:36You need a new trailer to go with your side-by-side?
08:38Kawasaki's got you covered.
08:40Boom, whack.
08:41I tell you what, I don't know about you, but I would grab, I think I'd grab a KRX-1000.
08:45I just spent over the last month in the desert in one, did a little night drive.
08:51That is such a cool rig.
08:53It's just the right amount of horsepower.
08:55The chassis and suspension are still excellent.
08:57They were excellent when it came out in 2019, and they just, they haven't even had to improve
09:02it.
09:03It's just that good.
09:04So that's the Kawasaki I'm taking home.
09:06Always a bargain, right?
09:07If you knock a little coin off or you get an excellent finance deal, you're good to
09:10go.
09:11If you're not looking for a side-by-side, they also have some pretty wild deals on ATVs,
09:16two grand off a Brute Force 750, which is an astronomical amount of money.
09:24Everything, everything from dirt bikes to street bikes, jet skis, it's not jet ski season
09:30up here, but hey, down in the Southwest, go get your jet ski, ride around for Christmas,
09:34be a good time.
09:36But yeah, all right, man, that's pretty exciting.
09:39So speaking of KRX, I got a little bored last week, not bored, that's not the right word.
09:49I was having a conversation with my boss, Mark Hoyer, he's editor-in-chief of Cycleworld,
09:55and he sat down and watched Mad Max for the first time in a long time, as you do.
10:00I was going to say, he'd seen it before, right?
10:02He had seen it.
10:03He had seen it before.
10:05It was just like the bi-monthly viewing of Mad Max, as far as I know.
10:09And it got me thinking about how we don't really see side-by-sides in those movies,
10:15which also got me thinking about what is the best side-by-side for the apocalypse?
10:21Okay, so I'm looking at your list here, and you've got some pretty good ones on here.
10:28I think, you know, my heart says the Can-Am Maverick R.
10:33I mean, that is the last V-8 Interceptor, that is Max's machine for the apocalypse,
10:41right?
10:42Yeah, I just, you know...
10:44I'm hearing doubt.
10:45I'm hearing a lot of doubt.
10:47With all due respect to Can-Am, one, there's not a ton of room for like, you're gonna need
10:52all sorts of stuff, you're gonna need a tent, at the very least, you're gonna need a bat
10:57wrapped with barbed wire, a sawn-off shotgun, you gotta have one of those.
11:02Where are you gonna keep your weird, like, leather vest things?
11:05You know, you gotta have a couple of those for the week, so there's nowhere to keep that
11:09in a Maverick R.
11:10Now, you can run away from the hordes really quickly, but you're also gonna need, you're
11:15gonna go through a lot of guzzling doing it, and it's a pretty small tank, you know?
11:20You're limiting your range.
11:22So, as tempting as that is, you listed at number two the Can-Am Defender 6x6 Limited.
11:30That is my girl.
11:31I'm just saying, Lord Humongous would be in a Can-Am 6x6, like, without a doubt, you know?
11:37Exactly.
11:38Well, and it's the long bed, right?
11:39So my brain goes to, you can solid-mount a 55-gallon drum and just plumb that into your
11:46fuel system.
11:47Problem solved.
11:48I thought you were gonna say live in it.
11:49I thought you were gonna say 55-gallon, just live in the 55-gallon drum, you know?
11:53You could.
11:54I mean, I would love to see some, like, Mad Max-ian camper shells built onto this thing,
11:59but, you know, again, my concern is going to be fuel range.
12:02Also, you've got HVAC.
12:04You've got a flip-out windshield if it's a nice day in the apocalypse.
12:08You know, you got solid doors, solid windows, so you can keep the creeps out and whatever
12:12you want in.
12:13Well, see, that's part of the conversation.
12:15What kind of apocalypse are we talking about, right?
12:18Because if it's a zombie apocalypse, you're gonna need that closed cap, you know?
12:22The Mav-R doesn't have that for you, so you're gonna want, you know, I had the XD-1500 on
12:27there for that exact reason.
12:28You know, plenty of horsepower, sealed cab, a little bit of cargo area.
12:33I'm just saying, there are options.
12:34It's not just the sport machine.
12:36Personally, personally, I'm here for a good time, not a long time.
12:39I want that Mav-R. You know, you got room for your Aussie Shepard.
12:43You know, you got a shot-off shotgun.
12:45You're good to go.
12:46What more do you need, you know?
12:47Well, yeah.
12:48The Wasteland will provide, is what I'm saying.
12:50In a Wasteland situation, the Mav-R is much more compelling.
12:53I will say this.
12:54The problem with having a Mav-R for the speed in a zombie apocalypse is, like, if you're
12:59running away from zombies, it's one thing, but, like, they're everywhere, so you turn
13:02around a corner, suddenly you're going 85 miles an hour at the zombies.
13:06Yeah, no.
13:07I see the problem.
13:08I see the problem.
13:09You know, you kind of want, like, I think you want to be able to kind of hang back and
13:12observe.
13:13Yeah, that's fair.
13:14That's fair.
13:15Yeah, but Mav-R is a close second for me, with the 6x6 Defender being first.
13:20Just traction, man.
13:21Traction for days.
13:22It looks right, you know?
13:24It looks, yes.
13:25It's like a little mini war rig, you know?
13:28You've got one in red here on the website, for the picture with the article, you know?
13:33I'd be cry-aligning mine flat black pretty much immediately, but, yeah, that's really
13:39my only note.
13:40Okay.
13:41All right.
13:42Well, there you go.
13:43All right.
13:44Well, speaking of apocalypse rigs, how about our next story here?
13:48Sam announced that the company has built 500,000 Defenders.
13:55So what you're saying is everyone agrees with me.
13:59That's exactly what I'm saying.
14:00That's exactly what I'm saying.
14:01Literally, everyone has been like, you know what, you know what I need around my apocalypse
14:04farm?
14:05A Defender.
14:06A Defender.
14:07Yeah.
14:08It's just, it's a testament, one, to how long they've been building the Defender, and two,
14:12how successful it is.
14:13Well, you know, we both have a lot of time in a Defender.
14:17One of our first projects here at UTV Driver, we bought a Defender with, what, 16,000 miles
14:24on it?
14:25Insane.
14:26Like, we bought that thing thinking, oh, well, you know, this thing's going to be run into
14:29the earth and absolutely beaten to death, and it's not going to last, right?
14:34The story was going to be how it all just sort of unraveled around us.
14:37It didn't.
14:38So, like, we had to figure out other things to do with it, so we put a lift on it.
14:42We put 33-inch tires on it.
14:44I rolled it down a mountain backwards three times.
14:47I was going to say, we had to try to kill it.
14:50Yeah, and didn't, and we wound up...
14:51No, shrugged it off.
14:52We wound up donating that machine to a volunteer fire department in Virginia, and they love
14:57it.
14:58They're still using it.
14:59They absolutely love it.
15:00Can't be killed.
15:01Yeah.
15:02Cannot be killed.
15:03No.
15:04And that's...
15:05Yeah, they build one basically for whatever you need, you know, all the way from low-power
15:10rigs all the way up to the HD10, and the 6x6, I mean, there's literally a Defender
15:16for whatever your use case is, and it shows.
15:18They've sold a pile of them.
15:20Yeah, and again, I think it speaks to...
15:23The Defender's one of those rigs, sort of like the Polaris, well, a lot like the Polaris
15:26Ranger, where it hasn't changed basically since they introduced it.
15:31You know, I think it came out in its current form in 2016, roundabout.
15:36That's coming up nine years ago.
15:39Which is insane to think about, but also like...
15:41They're just pumping them out, and people are still buying them.
15:45Yeah, and that's not for any other reason than it's just a really solid machine.
15:50So good on them.
15:52It's not a surprise, you know?
15:54Honestly, I wouldn't have guessed they'd built more than that, but when I saw 500,000 Defenders,
15:59I was like, yeah, I mean...
16:00Half a million.
16:01That is a lot.
16:02You know?
16:03You see them everywhere.
16:04Yeah, you do.
16:05I mean...
16:06Yeah, you do.
16:07And it goes back to what you were saying.
16:08I think I would be really interested in seeing what proportion were just like basic HD-7s
16:17with no nothing on them.
16:18It's gotta be the majority of them, right?
16:21Because as cool as the gussied-up sealed cab, you know, the $35,000 rigs are, as cool as
16:27those are and as much fun as those are, you know, clearly we've demonstrated that a base
16:32rig is really all you need to have a lot of fun, whether it's, you know, you're bouncing
16:36around on a trail or whether you have actual work to do, you know, they're kind of perfect
16:41for that.
16:42You know, any time we're up at Windrock, we see guys bouncing around in a Defender and
16:46like, well, that's not how I would choose to spend my Saturday afternoon.
16:50If that's all you've got, it's a pretty good time, you know?
16:53Well, hold on.
16:54It's...
16:55You say that, but you have chosen to spend a lot of Saturday afternoons that I've spent
16:59with you doing just that.
17:02So like...
17:03Well, yeah, I'm broken, though.
17:04I feel like...
17:05Yeah, I feel like it's easier to see than...
17:07But yeah, I guess the other reason my brain goes to HD7s and HD9s is that I feel like
17:14you don't get that kind of volume without selling a ton to businesses and fleets and
17:19that kind of thing, you know, as like real honest-to-goodness work rigs that never see
17:25a trail.
17:26They just haul stuff around job sites or whatever, which, again, to me is even more testament
17:31to how durable and kind of cool these things are.
17:34So anyway...
17:35Yeah.
17:36Yeah.
17:37No, I...
17:38Oh, and you can put tracks on it really easily.
17:39Oh, yeah.
17:40I forgot about that.
17:41Oh, I forgot we put tracks on one.
17:42Yeah, we...
17:43We put tracks on two of them.
17:44Yeah, we went up to Montana.
17:47The first time we were up there, it was in June, and there was still snow up there.
17:51And we...
17:52First, you know, first we just had the Defenders out running around and got them very stuck
17:56and had to unstick them, and then we put tracks on it and tried to make it to Idaho.
18:00But yeah, like bolting up tracks, I think that took us like, what, an hour maybe?
18:03Yeah.
18:04And like the...
18:05Well, that would...
18:06We got two rigs done in an hour.
18:07Yeah, which is...
18:08Like, we've been doing one...
18:09Yeah.
18:10Yeah.
18:11Even better.
18:12All right.
18:13That is a wrap for this week.
18:14As always, ride safe.
18:16Have fun.
18:17If you enjoyed the podcast, be sure to like and subscribe.
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