Last weekend I had a wonderful chance to sit down with Ray Monsrud of Polaris. During our conversation, I asked him about the Polaris NX we talked about a few weeks ago here on vintagesleds.com. That post raised a lot of questions about the NX and Ray is the guy with the answers!
The term “NX” was just a term to describe the project for all the team members working on the build of the sled. They knew full well it was to be the new Colt. It was to be the smallest, least expensive snowmobile in the Polaris line-up. It was not, as rumored earlier, to be another model.
Just three of the original prototypes were built, then taken apart and put on a plane. They flew the parts to Alaska and landed on a glacier. Once on the ice and with the parts unloaded, the team re-assembled the sleds and proceeded to test them on the glacier.
Ray Monsrud, Ron Bradley and Ranger Nelson were all involved with the testing in Alaska. they slept at night in tents there and tested all through the days till they were confident they had a good sled.
Other than the three prototypes, Ray estimated only about 10 more were built for evaluation, and several of those had wheels for testing in the summer.