I think that the Swedish "Katt" comes from the English abbreviation for caterpillar - CAT. My guess is that someone along the line misunderstood or deliberately created a Swedish form that didn't consider this.

I don't ge any hits for this suggeston per se, but that may be because English speakers haven't felt the need for signifying the technology used (i.e caterpillar tracks) to achieve the machines function (to feed the cable).