Stihl reps seem to be the last to know (or admit) anything. We know that the saws are already in production in Virginia and in Germany from saws that some dealers have already gotten (and reported) by SN. They also spilled the goods on these saws on the web site in Germany. What happens is that distributor and factory inventory has to be cleared out before they release or ship the newer models. Previous releases of new saws in the states generally happened by region, and by dealer stock. When inventory runs low, they order more saws, and the distributor/factory ships them. Then when the old model runs out at the distributor warehouses they order and ship newer model saws to dealers. When they are sold out at the dealer, they put the new ones on the shelves for sale. Seemingly they have a lot of older model 261s out there now and that is why the big sale in Canada and Europe. It also seems that they wanted to keep these releases quiet by not increasing the model numbers on them, even though they are obviously significantly new designs. These saws also do not appear on the 'new products' list on the US web sites. Another (and bad) idea that they lifted from Husky. Husky has released two different design 346 model saws, three different design 372 saws, and several different design 365 saws.
. Eitherway I like the price and considering the price went up $60 on the 362 i can assume at least a $40 increase on the 261.
