The Boss Cat Turbine Running!

Sadly the original Boss Cat was completely destroyed in a fire at Arctic Cat. After setting a world record speed of 125.87 miles per hour on February 1st, 1971, surviving an explosion in Boonville New York, the sled put back together and was sent on a tour of dealers, distributors, sled shows and special events before winding up in the entrance of Arctic Cat in Thief River Falls, Minnesota some years later.

Two reproductions have been made of this iconic sled, because Arctic Cat did much more with it than set a speed record; they set the imaginations of a lot of people on fire with possabilities. There was no way anyone was going to let this beauty fade away and be forgotten.

This one was done by the Warning Family, primarily Jim Warning and his son Keith. The chassis was reproduced by Al Enno and Lee Larsen, the body was recreated by fiberglass magician Kenny Halverson (who worked on the original glass back in the day) and the mechanicals, driveline and turbonique were all done by drag racing legend Paul Groth.

A thing of beauty all by itself, they were not content on just having a pretty machine in their showroom. They wanted it to run.

The Boss Cat was powered by a 4-cylinder King Kat engine, an engine that is pretty rare. But that engine powered a Turbonique turbine, a much rarer beat to be sure. But Kieth and cousin Brad hunted one of the very few remaining Turboniques on the planet and managed to talk the owner into letting it go for this special project.

Over the memorial day weekend, Paul and the boys let the Turbonique sing for the first time in decades. It was all captured by Dave Schark. For sure it’s not really loud and has an unusual sound all it’s own, but it’s truly amazing to hear it after being silent for so long.