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Blast from the past – Early Snowmobiles blow your mind

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When you think about a “snowmobile”, the standard 2010 model probably comes to mind. It looks like this:

But before the world had settled on this conceptualization for a snow machine, inventors were all over the map. Here is one design from the 1920s that kind of blows your mind:

At the three minute point you can see that horses and deep snow really do not mix.

About that same time, people were converting their Model Ts into snowmobiles, some of which still exist today:

If you want to convert your car to a snowmobile today, you do it with tracks as shown here:

If you have seen the Ken Block Trax video and are wondering where the tracks come from…

For more on the history of the snowmobile, visit: History of Snowmobiling. Which makes an interesting point:

What is amazing though is that man actually flew before he could master snow travel. The Wright Brothers Flew in 1903, the very first vehicle that was built to go in snow wasn’t built until 1908. That was actually the Lombard log hauler designed and built in Waterville, Maine. It was a large cumbersome machine that resembled a steam locomotive, only it had a half track design and front skis.

[[[Jump to previous BFTP - Blast from the past – The pneumatic tube system at Stanford]]]

 
 

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