In a late afternoon winter day in 1913 near Ossipee, New Hampshire, heavy snowfall had drifted roads almost shut and nothing was moving. Other than smoke coming from the village chimneys, the village showed no sign of life, except for the clattering of a Model T Ford engine. But the noise sounded a little different than usual in the cold air, a rattling and clattering of extra noises from the usual sound of the Model T, and as improbable as it seemed to the onlookers a Ford roadster was actually driving on top of the deep snow. This tin lizzy had skis in lieu of front wheels! At the rear were four wheels, the side pairs connected by chains throwing up large amounts of snow goonies. It was the first recorded snowmobile on its successful test run.
The inventor, Virgil White, eventually made thousands of "Snowmobiles" beginning in 1923, under a patent granted in 1917 as an "attachment for automobiles," not for a complete vehicle. White relocated the front wheels directly ahead of the rear ones on a new axle, added a pair of cleated chains around both sets of rear wheels and White had a powerful tractor-tread for pulling through snow. White's machines were a bargain. In 1922, the four-cylinder Ford roadster sold new for $450 and White's conversion kit cost an additional $175. The snowmobile was a stroke of genius, since everyone knew or thought they knew everything there was to know about the Model T and its engine. White's machine was an immediate success opening rural areas which had previously been closed through the long winter, opening snow-bound areas for essential services, getting the general practitioner doctor to his winter-marooned patients.
White bought standard Ford roadsters, and even some coupes, and converted them in his small plant. They were sold extensively, with some even exported to Arab countries. The primary users of White's machines were doctors using them for house calls.
Credit for the invention of the snowmobile actually goes to Carl J. Eliason who built his machine and first used it in 1924-25 and was granted a patent in 1927. Eliason, a young store owner, had a club foot that curtailed his beloved winter hunting and fishing, so he constructed a wooden toboggan powered by a small outboard motor that ran a single chain track down the center. His machine is the grandfather of the low-slung, narrow snowmobile we know today. Go here if you want to read more .
In 1922, Joseph Armand Bombardier, a 15-year-old Quebec boy, made a motorized sleigh powered by a Ford engine. It ran on four ski runners, and was steered with a rope and driven by a hand-carved wooden propeller. The boy sat ahead of the engine. On his trial run through the streets, his horrified father made the boy drive it home and dismantle the dangerous conveyance. Today the Bombardier Company is the parent company of Lear Jets, Evenrude, Bombardier snowmobiles and Bombardier Jet Trains. You can read more about them here.
In 1917, Otto Johnson built a small, one-man motorized toboggan in Minnesota, but it didn't prove to be viable. Some credit for motorized snow vehicles goes to Czar Nicholas' pre-World War I Twin-Six Packard, which sported heavyweight sled runners instead of front wheels!
In Fredon, NJ, housed in a 6,000 square foot barn, is the Snowmobile
Barn Museum which traces over 90 years of snowmobiling history with a
rare collection of over 130 sleds and thousands of assorted collectible
items like toys, ornaments, jewelry and advertisements.
You can get more
information here.
Early machines were also called skimobiles or snowcats. Today a "snowmobile" is a motor vehicle with a revolving tread in the rear and steerable skis in the front, used for traveling over snow. Men accustomed to driving their families gently in the family cars become monsters when they get on snowmobile seats. Speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour are common and we have even seen speeds of 80 miles per hour or so on the Main Street of town during heavy snowstorms. But, heck, what police car has a chance against a snowmobile and a snowstorm?
