AT modellbau (AT RC Snowcats) was founded in 2007 to sell the kit and later also accessories for RC snowcat models. In mid 2008 the company moved to the USA, and is now located at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Denver, Colorado.
The first radio controlled snow groomer, a Kässbohrer PistenBully 36.145D, was built by the founder as a teenager in 1974/75. Due to the limited resources at this time the chassis and tracks were not very solid. Although the model did move, it was clear after the first tests that improvements were necessary. These somehow did never get finished, and therefore a new chassis with tracks was built in 2011 to bring this historic model snowcat back to live.
In the early 1980s the German modeling company Graupner released a model of the PistenBully (actually made by Kyosho), which was of course purchased and which is in use ever since.
In 2006 the body of the Graupner PistenBully was already quite out-dated, so the decision was made to build the body of the brand new PB600. With already four snow groomer models in the family which should all be updated, the work intensive method of vacuum forming was chosen.
This opened up the opportunity to make the body available to other interested modelers. After closing a license agreement with Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug AG also the legal part was covered, and meanwhile our PistenBully 600 kit is the by far most built body kit in 1:12. By the way, AT modellbau was the first company producing upgrade bod kits in small series production for scale 1:12.
Since 2009 our kits are distributed exclusively by Pistenking Funktionsmodellbau.
PB 145D before being restored. To the side the letter from Kässbohrer 1974
That's how everything started! First run on March 29, 1975.
The body and chassis tub were built out of ply wood and balsa wood. For the gear box a couple of different variants were tried, but at the end a worm drive from Fischer Technik remained. In the mid seventies there was almost nothing available for RC vehicles. The batteries were lead batteries with liquid acid, not sealed, so they had to be handled with care. The RC units were costing a fortune back then, there were fast clips for the servos available to enable a quick transfer from one model to another. Therefore every part of this model was scratch built, partly with simple methods and often without knowing the actual forces.
Planning of the model started in fall 1974, the first trial run was on March 29, 1975. It was in full action in the winter of 1975/76.
From the companies Kässbohrer, Hämmerle and Ratrac, who were asked back then for brochures, only one still exists. By the way Kässbohrer sent the best material, a splendid brochure with 3-view drawings, which was perfect for a modeler.
In 2011 the model was completely overhauled with a new chassis, motors and tracks. A description about the restoration is here on the
Webpage of Walser Snow Cat Models.