Josef Haumann, Erwin Kasberger and Walter Sautter (from left to right) are PistenBully production masters and have been part of the vehicle’s story from the start

Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug AG

The 15,000th PistenBully: three masters live the spectacular success story

Laupheim, 1 December 2006. This month, Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug AG celebrated the production of its 15,000thPistenBully. Staff at the company filled the day with pride, and rightly so. In the maintenance of slopes and cross-country ski runs, and the construction of FunParks, PistenBully are the world’s market leaders with a share of over 50 percent – a position no one at the start dared even to dream of. Not even the three production masters, Walter Sautter, Josef Haumann and Erwin Kasberger, who have been part of the whole PistenBully story since the 60s and 70s.

As foreman, Walter Sautter is now responsible for production. In 1968, in his second year as an apprentice, he was called to a wooden hut where the Karl Kässbohrer vehicle manufacturing company carried out its tests. “This was before anyone was even talking about a ‘snow roller’,” Walter Sautter recalls. Everything that happened in the wooden hut was obviously shrouded in the utmost secrecy. “The fact that the vehicle to be developed would firmly shape the next four decades of my working life never even occurred to me at that point,“ says Walter Sautter today.

Karl Kässbohrer came up with the idea for PistenBully during a winter holiday on the Alpe di Siusi. He was annoyed that the vehicle they had for preparing the slopes – a ‘DIY model’ of course – had broken down and could not be repaired. Karl Kässbohrer and his brother Otto shared a powerful curiosity about all unusual vehicles. The Kässbohrer brothers thus commissioned Walter Haug, their design engineer, to develop a ski-slope vehicle which would meet market demands in terms of its technology. Haug first put pen to paper in June 1968, and since then has been considered the ‘father’ of the PistenBully.


1975 saw production of the 1,000th PistenBully – the staff assembled in what was then Factory 2 in Ulm for a commemorative photo.

In 1968, mechanical slope grooming was not yet 10 years old. The world’s first images were shown on TV in 1960, of track-driven army vehicles preparing for the Eighth Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley in the Sierra Nevada. Entry into this new field of business was a major decision, since competition was stiff. About 10 different companies and a few amateur design engineers were working on ski-slope vehicles. The underlying concepts were essentially one and the same: petrol engine, lever control with steering brakes, manual transmission and either disc or drum brakes.

Kässbohrer took a different approach: their vehicle too had front-wheel drive and a 120-hp petrol engine from Daimler-Benz, but it also had a hydrostatic driveline, a steering wheel, a spacious driver’s cab and a large loading platform. The first prototype was sent to a ‘tank test track’ in Ulm in December 1968; the first small-series production then followed in 1969. The five PistenBully 32.120 B models were converted to rear-wheel drive and beat with the heart of a 120-hp six-cylinder engine. “Then diesel engines came in – at high altitudes the petrol ones had too little combustion air,” recalls Walter Sautter. The ski-slope vehicle left Ulm for its first real test in 1971 in Flaine, Upper Savoy – and passed with flying colours. Held against its international competitors, PistenBully measured up exceptionally well. The particularly impressive aspect of the 39.145 D was its hydrostatic driveline: while the competition lacked a steady flow of forces owing to its manual transmission, which took its toll on the slope, the PistenBully climbed up mountains at a steplessly adjustable speed and could thus adapt perfectly to the terrain and snow conditions at hand. It was at this point that it became clear that the PistenBully idea would take off. Erwin Wieland – then Area Sales Manager for SETRA Coaches – organised PistenBully sales from 1971 and firmly shaped the next 30 years of PistenBully history.

That same year, further developments to the 145 model were presented. The 170 D offered a tiltable driver’s cab. Josef Haumann himself, now an expert in track production, had a hand in this operator-friendly development: in the workshop, this trained farm-machinery technician welded the PistenBully’s load-bearing lattice frame. The international market breakthrough came in 1972 at the Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, where PistenBully took charge of the slope grooming. That was also the year in which Erwin Kasberger, who for the past 20 years has been responsible for production together with foreman Walter Sautter, completed his training at Kässbohrer. He remembers Sapporo as vividly as his colleagues Sautter and Haumann: “It was a milestone for PistenBully,” they say in unison.

The Sautter, Haumann and Kasberger triumvirate have been part of the PistenBully story throughout the decades. Even through the days when the PistenBully line was largely overlooked by Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke: “They sniggered at us and didn’t really take us seriously,” says Kasberger. Sautter agrees: “What’re you trying to achieve with a couple of Bullys?” was often to be heard coming from colleagues in the bus and coach division. “It was even rumoured that we had to be subsidised,” Haumann adds. “But that was wrong. We have never been in the red – and even in terms of image, the tide soon changed,” Sautter points out with an unmistakable sense of gratification.


The first PistenBully series, the 32.120 B, was dispatched in 1969; it had a 120-hp six-cylinder petrol engine.

Once PistenBully got going, there was no stopping it: in 1979, at just ten years old, over 2,000 vehicles were in operation in 35 countries. This first decade also saw a long list of fundamental innovations which were implemented bit by bit: in its second series, the PistenBully received a smoothing board and a clearing blade followed, amongst other things, by a ski-trail former and, in 1976, a tiller. In the early years, staff still had to use their combined strength to push the PistenBully through the production hall. The first shunter didn’t arrive until 1977. “It was a converted stacker truck that had actually been discarded. And during the demonstration, the then fleet manager succeeded in pranging it!” Sautter recounts, still laughing to this day. At the end of the 70s, Factory 2 was modernised and turned into a separate PistenBully building, which it shares with other Kässbohrer products to this day.

In the mid-80s, the PistenBully 060 D - 110, along with its successors the 150 D and the 160 D, became the world’s most successful cross-country ski-run machines. Shortly afterwards, the 200 DW became the first vehicle with an overhead winch for grooming steep escarpments. On the subject of steep escarpments: during the first delivery to the Zugspitze, Walter Sautter and Josef Haumann had to strip down the PistenBully at the Schneefernerhaus railway station in order to get it out of the tunnel. Once at the top, they were forced to negotiate their way down a steep escarpment with the vehicle to reach the area in which they were actually meant to be. To this end, the snow had deliberately not been blasted away – so that we could ride down on it if you like,” says Sautter. Subsequent Zugspitze deliveries proved equally adventurous: once the PistenBully had to be roped down because there was too little snow; another time, Josef Haumann got very hot and bothered in the Zugspitze tunnel because everyone was waiting for him to get back so that the necessary blasting could finally be carried out. Such experiences naturally weld them together. “We’re thick as thieves,” says Erwin Kasberger, emphasising this point.

None of this changed in 1994 when the Geländefahrzeuge (all-terrain vehicles) product segment of what was originally Karl Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke GmbH was turned into a separate company. Quite the opposite, in fact. Even the success of PistenBully continued: in 1997, the 10,000th vehicle was delivered. At this stage it was operating in 52 countries and on all six continents. The 90s were also to produce the PistenBully 300. Its distinguishing features consisted of extreme climbing performance, low maintenance and automatic track tensioning. Josef Haumann from track production casts his mind back to the early days: we used to have to roll the tracks by hand, and it took two hours before they were assembled. Boy did we have to graft back then.“


Behind every successful product is an active team: the staff at Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug AG celebrates the 15,000th PistenBully.

In 1998 Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug AG was floated. The shares were first listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on 16 September. Four years later the company moved to its new site in Laupheim, Germany. “The factory is beautiful. Everything is more modern, the work is easier,” says Erwin Kasberger approvingly. In 2002, the PistenBully 300 Polar was launched. With 455 hp it is the most powerful PistenBully of all time.

Right from the word go, PistenBully has always been a step ahead of the competition: “For the ski-slope vehicle, we had the patent for the hydrostatic driveline and were then able to develop it further. We’ve maintained the head start to this day,” says Walter Sautter. This is doubtless also due to the great ambition of the staff: “At demonstrations we had to get up the mountain alongside the other competitors. I have never willingly thrown away a race – regardless of the consequences,” Sautter admits. His colleague Haumann recalls that they sometimes used to work up to 65 hours a week: “We often loaded up again at one in the morning.”

None of the three masters wants to reveal which model is dearest to them: “The 170 D was the first to have a nice round ‘face’ – from the 240, design became a real focal point....” They are at any rate full of enthusiasm for the current PistenBully 600, which combines the very latest technology with red hot design: “It is an absolutely top-class machine in every respect,” says Kasberger, speaking on behalf of them all. “A PistenBully is and always will be a PistenBully – technology is technology,” concludes Sautter. Walter Sautter, Josef Haumann and Erwin Kasberger have grown up with PistenBully. Or the other way around: perhaps it is also PistenBully that has grown up with them. Either way, the growth is impressive – PistenBully number 15,000 is something to be proud of.