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ATV – Polaris Celebrates 20 Years of ATVs

Polaris Industries, Medina, Minn., is celebrating the company’s 20th anniversary of manufacturing ATVs in the United States. It also marks another important milestone, the two millionth ATV coming off the line.
The first ATVs Polaris built were the Scrambler three-wheeler and the Trail Boss four-wheeler. The company built approximately 1,700 Scramblers before retiring the three-wheel model in 1986 when the industry shifted to four-wheel machines.
The Trail Boss is still a model that exists today. In 1995, the company launched what would become, and still is, the best selling ATV of all time, the Sportsman. Polaris sold more than 715,000 Sportsman units through 2004.
In 1985, the Polaris ATV manufacturing line in Roseau, Minn., consisted of approximately 200 people. At that time, annual ATV production was completed in about 24 days. Today, Polaris ATVs are manufactured by more than 1,500 employees in the company’s three facilities — Roseau Spirit Lake, Iowa and Osceola, Wisc. Currently, ATV production is underway approximately 220 days each year. The final assembly is done in Spirit Lake and Roseau, the birthplace of Polaris.
Early last year Polaris signed its first military contract for $10.3 million over five years and began developing an ATV specifically to meet military needs. The military version, MV, evolved and is now being used in Afghanistan and Iraq. The machine boasts the chassis and engine of a standard Sportsman 700.

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