We are heading into winter so we are stepping up the blog and mixing in some informational info with my day-to-day content.

If you’re reading this, the odds are you’re probably like me and can’t wait for the white stuff to be falling from the sky. While winter will be here in no time, you have probably spent some time sitting in your garage with your sled, staring, cleaning, and staring some more, just waiting to grab some throttle. So while you’re waiting for the cold to arrive here is a little sled history for you.

The first “modern” tracks were designed by Adolphe Kegresse for Tsar Nicholas the second, somewhere between 1906 and 1916. The crazy Russian slapped the tracks on a few cars including a Rolls-Royce and a Packard truck. These were the first to use rubber instead of metal links (can you imagine if we still had metal tracks haha).  The first snowmobiles in the US were actually Ford Model T’s with tracks in 1916. And were popular for rural mail delivery.

In steps Joseph Bombardier from Quebec. Bombardier set out to make a snow machine that would kill it in both wet and dry snow. In 1937 he came out of the B-7, a seven-passenger snowmobile with a Ford V-8! They were used for Canadian Post trucks, winter school buses and even for the army in WW2.  But Bombardier’s dream had always been to build a small version.

Small snowmobiles like we think of today, were tough early on because engines were so heavy. No super light Rotax, cranking out tons of hp back then. Ed and Allen Hetten and David Johnson (who eventually started Polaris) built the first smaller snow machine in 1955 but it wasn’t until 1959 when Bombardier would step back in and built what we think of the modern open cockpit sled called, you got it, the ski doo. The rest is history. Bombardier grew BRP, who now makes sleds, jet skis, quads, shifter carts and all kinds of big kid toys.

So there is a little history lesson for everyone. Pray for snow.

Oct 19, 2009 | Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: "back flip", "dirt bike", "first snowmobile", "foam pit", "heath frisby", "isaac sherbine", "joe parsons", "keith sayers", "mike metzger", "red bull", "scs vinylworks", "ski doo", "sled wrap", "snowmobile graphics", "snowmobile wraps", "stand up paddle board", billings, bombardier, polaris, slednecks, sledstyle, snowmobile | 5 Comments »