The 1981 Cat SnoPros. And one crazy John Deere!

Here's what I learned about them. Cat made just six of these chassis. Two were for Jim Dimmerman, two were for Bob Elsner. The other two got Scorpion glass for Brad Hulings.

After 1981, the sleds went to Neilson enterprises. The Cats were raced by the Goodwins, maybe some others. The two Scorpions were later combine into one that became Jim Dimerman's "Phantom" that he won the World Championship with in 1984. I think that makes it the only chassis to win that race twice - if there was another one, I'd love to hear about that.

One of Elsner's sleds is now in the Snowmobile Hall of Fame in St. Germain, it's history from Cat to the Hall of Fame is well known and documented. Elsner's other sled is rumored to be in a private collection.

Enter Rick Van Snick and Jon Carlson. Jon found an 81, and Rick Van Snick did an outstanding restoration of it. Jon, at the time, was building a very impressive collection. He kept it low key, but the sleds he acquired in a short period of time were pretty impressive.

Recently, Jon decided to let some sleds go. When word got to Jerry McGee that Jon had an 81 Cat, Jerry was on a plane for Minneapolis, and he and I went to Jon's place to look it over. A few measurements later, we were on the way to the Hall of Fame.

We looked over the Elsner sled good, had a great dinner with some friends there, and were on the way back to Jon's. Based on what we learned between the two, were were pretty certain it was in fact one of the 81 SnoPros. Jerry and Jon were both elated over the deal. Jon was glad to see it go to a good home, I think Jerry was stunned he found one!

But we figured there was one guy who could really give it a going over.

Jim Dimmeran.

Jim looked her over with a fine tooth comb and confirmed it for us. The shock towers, trailing arms and a few other items make it an 81. Some parts over the years had been altered, but it was correct.

So I'd be the last one to say we learned everything there is to know about an 81, but Jerry plans to keep digging up the details.

Here's some photos from the experience.

Jon's collection features one of Huling's twin trackers, a 79 RXL, an 81 Cat SnoPro, and some of the coolest John Deere's on the planet.

"Just" a Liquifire huh?

Would you believe it is actually a prototype from when Polaris bought John Deere. That's a Centurion motor beautifully installed in that black beauty. Jon says she's a hoot to drive!

Jon's Polaris rack. A 77 and 79 TXL, an original 440 73 Starfire and a restored 295 - done by Jim Haug. Guess what? I can't tell which is original and which is restored.

Mr. Dimmerman reunited with his 81 Cat Snopro. Look at how great that hood looks!

Old enemies reunited as buddies. These two sleds more than likely saw lots of track time together running round-robin eliminations and finals.

4.22.2008
YOU CAN OWN THIS SSR!
Rarely do these sleds ever become available... But thanks to the stunning generosity of Jon Carlson (Jon was part of Enduro Team Deere back in the day) this SSR can be yours for the well-below market price of $13,500! 100% of the sale price goes to support thee Hall of Fame in St. Germain. Want it? Call the Hall at 715-542-4488. If it's not sold by April 27th, it will go on Ebay.

It's the 4th machine off the assembly line, it runs, and needs just a few parts replaced to be a perfect restoration. More details on the sled are available in this Bull Sessions posting.

4.16.2008
EVEN MORE "IT AIN'T EASY" PRESS FROM BACK IN THE DAY
Well... even with winter over, things are moving really fast in the world of vintage snowmobiles and here at vintagesleds.com.

First of all, thanks to all of you who pre-ordered "It Ain't Easy" and thanks for your patience. We ran into some snags with the discs that we hope to have it all sorted out and get them shipped in 5-10 days at the most.

Next, I'm getting really close to finished a sled that I've wanted to see restored since I first laid eyes on it over 7 years ago - Don Omdahl's 74 SnoPro. It will be unveiled at the Classic Sled Roundup on May 25th. There will also more surprises at that show, so stay tuned for that.

Race dates for next year are already starting to take shape. I've started a Bull Sessions thread to try and help everyone get the 2009 race dates organized and published. I understand some revisions to the rules are due out very soon as well.

Here's some more press on "It Ain't Easy" from way back in the day. This one sent in from the Bull Sessions JLOPower. It's from the Feb/March 1973 issue of "Invitation to Snowmobiling" and has some really interesting background on the Thief River Falls premiere of the movie. My favorite line in this article is "It hits on all that is modern in Minnesota: alienation, drugs, snowmobiles. It's almost painfully and Easy Rider of the snow. It's also good. Damn good in spots."

4.14.2008
CLASSIC SLED ROUNDUP INFORMATION
Responding to input from past attendees, the Snowmobile Hall of Fame Classic Snowmobile Round-Up will expand the 1973-Earlier Race sled and 1974-Later Race Sled classes to include both Restored and Original categories. These new classes are not listed on the Round-Up promotional information.

For more information on the Classic Sled Round-Up, May 25 in St. Germain, Wis., go to www.snowmobilehalloffame.com.

Also please note there was a mistake in the contact info on fliers sent out to promote the show. Event chair Charles Plueddeman can be contacted at pluedy@execpc.com.

MORE "IT AIN'T EASY" PRESS FROM BACK IN THE DAY
Good early review on the movie - noting that while it won't win any academy awards, it's a "must have" for snowmobilers due to the riding and racing scenes. I have to go watch it again now to see if I can spot the then CEO of Cat, Lowell Swenson, playing the part of the janitor. Thanks to Dan a.k.s "xtra97" for sending this in.

4.08.2008
THE RESCUE DEERE

Note: This is one of a great many articles submitted over the winter months when so much was going on that it was hard to fit it all in. As the spring and summer shows start, I will be updating with a lot of these stories and some maybe slightly out of date - but still great stories.

Thanks to Grant Nelson for sharing.

By Grant Nelson

My hobby is to collect old John Deere snowmobiles, I’ve explained the reasons for this interest in past columns. For the most part, this hobby is based on my personal history with John Deere snowmobiles and an appreciation for their simple, dependable design and function. This week I want to write about a sled whose own history is the real focus of my interest and at the same time explain what I’ve done to make it possible for this snowmobile to have a future.

The John Deere 400 I’ve spent the last year repairing was manufactured in Horicon, Wisconsin but made itself useful around the Bowman County, North Dakota area. It’s first owner was Doug Schwartz who purchased it in 1972, like most snowmobiles, it was used for enjoyment and to relieve boredom from a long winter spent but this sled was also used to help people who were sick and lost. Doug Schwartz was one of the first Emergency Medical Technicians around Bowman and used the 400 to find downed airplanes, deliver medicine in an area with few roads and actual emergency runs where he and the 400 hauled hurt people to the hospital. One night, a rancher ran his own snowmobile through the wall of his barn so Doug and e.m.t partner, Ervin Schneider (also on a Deere,) pulled a luggage sled out to the farm and hauled the rancher in to the Bowman hospital. This was a trip of fourteen miles, at night, in the snow and without the benefit of any moon which tells me that this sled was made tough in order to live up to the demands and abilities of it’s driver. I know people make longer trips today but long-travel suspensions and gps have made it possible for anyone to call themselves a snowmobiler.

I purchased the 400 one 35 degree below day last February; it had not run since 1992 and it’s recent history was spent on a hill in the middle of a pasture near Bismarck, North Dakota. Since then, it had sat in my shop until last November when I began by taking it apart and removing the damaged track. I don’t call what I do “restoration” because the raises expectations much too high; I guess maybe “redemption” is a better way to describe what I do with my old snowmobiles. I repair everything that is important to the sled’s operation, however cosmetics are left to only what is absolutely necessary. I wanted the 400 kept in original condition but to also feel a little proud; for this reason I had decals made up to tells it’s story. Along with the regular decals it has a red cross, a civil defense sticker and lettering that states “Bowman County First Responder” plus a mounted first aid kit which will help to tell it’s story even after I pass it along to someone else. In order to keep it operating like new I replaced the following (short list); new crankcase seals, replaced all bearings, new seat, new light bulbs, replaced the track, repaired trailing arms, new windshield and many small repairs made in the interest of making this sled more than just a static display.

I feel I’ve accomplished maintaining some history and at the same time the 400 is something I can drive right now as it starts on the first pull. The real reward was last Sunday; I took the little sled out for a short, initial ride; it performed better than my John Deere 300 and much more quietly than the JDX-8 with which it shares space. I thought how this was a good choice for first responder work; dependable and powerful with plenty of low-end torque and respectable top speed. I’d like to test the 400’s rescue abilities but that may be some time in coming; know any rancher willing to ride his own snowmobile through the wall of his barn?

???

4.02.2008 YOU WON A COLT! CHARGER! It was Mid December 1968. In the small town of Sebewaing, Michigan, with about 2,500 inhabitants. The local merchants normally had a drawing every year around Christmas. I remember that when you shopped you would get a ticket for every dollar that was spent. You put your name and phone on it and drop it in the big drum. The grand prize was normally a TV or furniture.

But this was the only year they gave away a Snowmobile. We as a family went up to town and met with friends. My Mom said that Dad, for some reason, did not want to go that night but he went anyway. Good thing he did, as it was my Dads name that was pulled out of the drum of tickets! We won a snowmobile!!

I was at the great age of 10. So I was really excited to have a snowmobile! This was Friday night and I think we had to go to the dealer to pick it up. The dealer was "Gettels", a John Deere tractor dealer. I remember that we were supposed to get the cheaper one (the Colt) but I think they sold it. Instead, we got the Polaris Charger with a 300cc JLO. The trailer did not come with it.

I remember I could not start that sled but if Dad started it I was off to the school and rode that sled all around the football yard, and around the house. The picture below was in the local paper the next week. Left to right: Standing next to the sled is my Father, Fred Gnagey. Sitting on the sled is me Brian and my brother Kevin. Standing: sister Lou Ann and Nelda, my Mom. Dad passed away in 2001.

That night changed mine and my brothers life for ever! We both still ride sleds and I am into the Vintage as well.

Thanks for the memory! Brian Gnagey.

2.30.2008 YOU WON A COLT! Remember the "Win a Colt" promotion from Polaris? Dealers sent in the name and addresses of their customers and Polaris sent them each a key. Anyone that got a key could come on in to the local Polaris dealer and try the key in the lock of a shiny new Colt. If it opened the lock, you won!

Pictured below is Dave Crumb's dad, with an un-named Polaris representative next to him. Dave's dad was a Polaris dealer, and sitting on the Colt is the lucky winner from his dealership.

Does that shiny new Colt look like fun or what?

2.26.2008 IT AIN'T EASY - FULL LENGTH FEATURE VINTAGE SNOWMOBILE MOVIE This movie was made in 1972, and we started hunting it down way back in 2001... It took a long time to get permissions on this one, and it took a long time to clean up the source footage. It was pretty grainy, but we did some noise reduction and color correction. It's not perfect... but it's better than the VHS copies floating around out there. There's some great snowmobile footage in this movie, and to be honest, the acting is SO BAD that it's great humor to watch!

Mostly Cat sleds in this movie, but some Sno*Jet, Ski-Doo, Yamaha, Polaris and even an exploding Brut. It's 82 minutes long, color, mono sound.

The movie stars Lance Henrickson, who went on to star in such movies as "Dog Day Afternoon", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and others.

Way back in 2004, Dan Tomlanovich sent in this photo from the January 1972 issue of Sno-mobile times. It talks about the movie under it's working title of "Into A Storm".

2.21.2008 THE MAKING OF THE POLARIS BUYERS GUIDE Michael Dapper is the author of "The Polaris Buyers Guide". To date it is the most comprehensive book you can get on the various Polaris models, collectability, and rankings. When I talked with Michael about the book originally, he told me a pretty fantastic tale about how the book "happened". Some time ago I encouraged him to write up the tale so it can be told her.

As I have babbled about before, I have undertaken the task of writing a book about the Polaris race team from David Johnson to Jerry Bunke. I'm about two years into the research and interviews and the latest count puts me at 20 interviews that have yet to be done. Yet with each interview and each new photo, I'm more more enthusiastic to keep going and get this amazing story out for everyone.

Check out Michael's story below; It's pretty cool.

The Making of the Polaris Buyer’s Guide: Doing Research in the Pre-Electronic Era

Imagine working on the biggest research project you’ve ever undertaken, but you don’t have today’s electronic technology at your disposal.

No e-mail. No internet. No digital photography. No laptops. No home scanners.

It sounds prehistoric, but that’s exactly the world I was in back in the early 1990s when I began work on the Polaris Snowmobile Buyer’s Guide (which is now back in print).

My work on the project started with a letter – sent by snail mail, of course – to David Johnson, an original partner in Polaris and the man behind the creation of the first Polaris snowmobile. I briefly described the book idea and asked him for an audience. An eternally gracious fellow, he agreed to meet me, so I drove to Roseau.

I met David, his son Mitchell Johnson and Mike Hetteen (a son of the late Alan Hetteen) in the restaurant attached to the Super 8. They were all polite, but were also reluctant. After all, I was a stranger to them, and they had been burned too many times by similar strangers spinning well-meaning tales. All three men had substantial archives of historic Polaris photography and printed materials, and all had lost valuable pieces of their collections. All too often when they had loaned, say, a rare 8x10 print to a magazine editor, they never got the photo back.

Remember, this was before the explosion of handy electronic devices like home scanners and digital photography, meaning documents and photos were strictly hard-copy items. And in the case of the Johnson and Hetteen collections, these items were most certainly irreplaceable.

I understood their reluctance to be too generous to this stranger buying them breakfast. After all, when I had worked as a magazine and book editor, I, too, had lost photos submitted for publication. Like those single socks that stray from the clothes dryer and are never seen again, photos sometimes disappeared into black holes such as the backs of file cabinets and mislabeled file folders.

Yet the Johnsons and Mike Hetteen were highly cooperative. They agreed to grant me access to their collections, but only after I swore to remove from Roseau only those photos that would actually be used in the book.

On this and subsequent trips to Roseau I planted myself in the roomy living room of David Johnson’s beautiful home in rural Roseau to sort through his boxes of materials. The boxes were a treasure trove, a museum waiting to be organized.

The boxes contained Polaris photos, press releases, sales sheets, brochures and business letters from the ‘50s through the ‘70s. There were countless black and white 8x10 glossies, all of stunning quality, most likely shot with a Speed Graphic or similar large-format camera. Many of these shot has been taken by Mitchell Johnson, who, as a youth, put his interest in photography to excellent use by taking publicity photos for Polaris.

The boxes also contained pages from parts catalogs, sell sheets (small and simple brochures) from the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, and hand-drawn exploded-view drawings of various Sno-Traveler models.

Along with the Sno-Traveler materials, the real treasures were the Polaris racing press kits from the ‘70s. These priceless folders contained press releases promoting race teams such as the Midnight Blue Express. The kits had driver biographies and mug shots of legends like Jim Bernat, LeRoy Lindblad, Bob Eastman, Steve Thorsen, Larry Rugland, Raynold Monsrud, Dorothy Mercer and more.

I cataloged the contents of the boxes on legal pads (remember, this was before laptops) and made as many notes as possible to help identify the myriad Sno-Traveler models. Each night I was allowed to bring a box of materials back to my room at the Super 8, where I would continue my cataloging and note-taking late into the night.

I never returned to the hotel hungry because all activity in the Johnson house would cease at midday for fantastic lunches prepared by David’s wife Eleanor. Everything stopped in mid-afternoon, too, for coffee and Eleanor’s homemade desserts. It was as if I was doing research in the finest, friendliest restaurant in Roseau County.

Unfortunately, the most valuable and oldest materials – those related to the Sno-Travelers – were mostly undated and unidentified. Sell sheets were not identified by model year, and the beautiful 8x10 photos only occasionally carried dates or model names. David helped out as well as he could, but remember, this is a man who oversaw production of hundreds of thousands of snowmobiles over the years. We tried to ID models based on their body types and engines, but I’m sure the Sno-Traveler section of the books contains errors.

With the help of Mitchell, Mike and Ray Monsrud, I was able to spend some time at the Polaris factory, looking through old file cabinets of owner’s manuals and paging through immense parts and service catalogs from years gone by. Again, I took notes by hand on legal pads, leaving me with dozens of tablets to sift through later as I worked on the manuscript.

Outside of Roseau, I received excellent help from vintage enthusiast and still-current sledhead John Sandberg. He loaned me old volumes of Snow Goer magazines and answered infinite questions. I traveled to Manchester, Minnesota, to visit the mayor, super-collector Bruce Vaith, and I spent a rewarding hours at Harlan Rohner’s museum in Willmar, Minnesota. At both sites I shot dozens of  photos (using print film, which was as good as it got at the time) and took pages of notes. I roamed the swap meets at Haydays in search of photo-worthy old models, and visited the Prior Lake, Minnesota, home of Leo Voss for a look at his stunning collection and my first chance to drive a Sno-Traveler.

Relying on long-distance phone calls and the U.S. Mail, networking was a slow process in the early ‘90s. Yet the mail included valuable information and photos from enthusiasts like Todd Tuohey and Gary Webster.

I had a ball working on the Polaris Snowmobile Buyers’ Guide, especially getting to know the great people who offered so much cooperation. I’ll never forget spending time at the Johnsons’ home and coming upon gems of old sleds in places like Willmar and Manchester. But you won’t catch me saying “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

2.17.2008 GIVING BEGETS GIVING What's that shiny new Arctic Cat doing on the front of VintageSleds.com? Well, it's a good story of why vintage sledders are the coolest people in the world.

Sitting on his new Cat is Zach Kruger. Standing behind Zach in that really fashionable Cat SnoPro suit is Paul James. Paul, as you may recall from past posts, won the Hall of Fame raffle this winter at the induction ceremony. Paul won over $8,000 that he could use to go on a shopping spree at a dealer of his choice.

He did buy a new mini-Cat for his daughter and a spiffy new jacket, but the rest of the cash he spent on the new Cat. Zach is the surviving son of Tracy Kruger, who you may recall lost his life an a senseless act of violence some time ago. Tracy and Paul were good friends and drag raced together for many years. At a vintage drag race this winter, Paul delivered the Cat to one very happy young man.

Now that's a good story.

SAMMY'S SNOPRO (WACONIA JOURNAL PART IV) At this winters Waconia show, this snappy little cloned 74 Polaris with a very fun 340 fan motor installed showed up. Lot's of people commented on what a fun idea it was to stick a fan motor in a SnoPro chassis. The name "Sammy" was on the hood, so lots of people were asking who the mysterious "Sammy" person is.

"Mystery" exposed.

Sammy is the daughter of Jim Haug. Jim initially put the sled together to be his new 440 free-air racer. But when the motor didn't come through, he thought it would be more fun to build it so Sammy could try a little racing. Sammy's also a hockey player, so she didn't get a chance to try vintage racing this year, but she is anxious to give it a try next year.

Oh, yeah, and the little girl on her lap is her sister Monkey Shelby.

2.11.2008 A Flying Black Lab and Other Misadventures in (Vintage) Snowmobiling. I ran across this fun story on a blog titled "One Too Many Potatoes". Dan Vander Ark wrote up a whole bunch of fun little vintage snowmobile stories in one blog entry. From his families first 69 Colt through his Dad's 1978 TXL, this family has been into old sleds since they were new. It's a good read that I recommend if you need a vintage fix today.

2.10.2008 LIVE ON SKIS JOURNAL PART II Hands down, one of the most impressive machines at Live on Skis this year was this spectacular John Deere. Few know, however, that this sled was restored, in its entirely by a collector who wishes to remain anonymous. And he did it just so Forrest Hess would have a darn nice one to ride. Hats off to our masked man! Forrest loved the sled - as did all the rest of us!

The Live on Skis Make-a-Wish Deere.

Sunday riders took a pause to cool down a Gemini.

Mr. Plowman got a matching Roll-o-Flex jacket for his ride.

Merc440 lost a tie-rod on Sundays ride. Not to worry, everyone offered a hand in getting it fixed.