We have had a decent number of snow related posts of late. So how about a genuine snowmobile? I spotted this 1969-1971 Snow Cruiser RK32 outside a local scrapyard. Perhaps we can split the year differences and call it a 1970. It didn’t stick around long so hopefully it was snapped up by a collector.
Snow Cruiser was a brand owned by Outboard Marine Corporation of Canada who in turn was a wholly owned subsidiary of the US based OMC. Envirude and a Johnson outboard motors were in the same corporate family. Snow Cruiser exclusively sold snowmobiles in Canada from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s. They were manufactured in a large and modern factory located in Peterbough, Ontario. The Vintage Snowmobile site offers a selection of fantastic and rare brochures for your browsing pleasure.
This particular Snow Cruiser is a RK32 (sometimes referred to as a RK321) model which would have been on the sportier end of the model range. Built for use in 400cc and under racing classes the RK32 packs a 399cc air cooled Kohler twin cylinder engine. The 32hp output is obtained with twin carburetors and gives the sled its name. A more powerful 36hp motor could be had if one stepped up to the RK36 model.
The dual headlight front end gives the sled more of a human face than the lower trim single headlight models. With the chrome wrap around bumper you could take away the front skis and it would have an amusement park bumper car look. The intake grating and gas cap are noticeably missing from this angle. Otherwise the snowmobile looks rather intact although a little weathered.
Other features of this model were standard disc brakes, neutral lookout, adjustable track and a cut down, tinted windshield. The transmission was a Salsbury variable speed drive with an endless double chain final gear. Suspension is torsion springs with six axles and 15 Bogie wheels.
In 1971 OMC discontinued the Snow Cruiser brand and instead choose to market its Evinrude and Johnson line of snowmobiles in Canada.
As a bonus this more basic 2005 model was sitting near by. I suspect this one is a 1970 model.
Envirude and JOHNSON. Just sayin’. Happy New Year!
Fixed now. Thanks.
If anyone here is into old sleds, speak up! There are many more that could be posted… from survivors to restos, and even a snowmobile junkyard tour.
+1 Absolutely David and Keith… Being Canadian, and given that Bombardier invented the modern snowmobile, I’d love to see more.
Here’s Bombardier’s original 1960 model…
I know where there is a 1959 model, it’s exactly like the 1960 pictured except it doesn’t have a windshield or headlight. The prototypes of these models were built of plywood and did not have an exposed tunnel/seat, it was like riding in a plywood bathtub, the sides were as high as the hood on the one pictured.
Love em’. A couple years back, I did a few posts from America’s Miracle Museum, in Polson, MT, which has an incredible collection of snow mobiles going back to the twenties or so. I’ll have to re-run it one of these days: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/vintage-snow-cats-snowmobiles-and-other-oddities-in-case-the-snow-plow-doesnt-show-up/
Absolute fascination with Harley-Davidson’s line of snowmobiles.
IIRC, HD did not manufacture sleds, they were built by another company (who’s name escapes me at the moment) under contract.
Interesting that Snow Cruiser did not use OMC 2 cycle engines but selected Kohler instead.
Bridging cars and snowmobiles if I may, the Model T Ford could be equipped with a track and ski kit to turn it into an early snowmobile. Might be worth a write-up here.
Also, long before the development of the “modern” snowmobile, Bombardier built and sold a fascinating line of “snow buses” that could be worthy of a winter season write-up too.
One more snowmobile/automobile observation or question:
Didn’t this Snow Cruiser snowmobile, and others, use a transmission system similar in operating principle to a CVT transmission in a new Nissan or Subaru?
Yes, CVTs are very common in snowmobiles.
To clarify, almost all snowmobiles have used CVTs.
Yes, same basic concept of two variable diameter pulleys and a belt. On snowmobiles, the belt looks rather like a timing belt and is operated in tension, in cars, the belt is made up of hundreds of little pieces of steel that ride on a steel ring or two, and the whole thing transmits power in compression rather than tension.
This has a bit of a write up. A cutaway drawing of a belt is shown a bit past half way down: http://asia.vtec.net/article/mmt/
What do you mean by compression versus tension? A snowmobile CVT with a rubber belt works the same way as the typical automotive steel belt, the clutches clamp the side of the belt. Primary difference is the automotive belts are steel because rubber wears too quickly.
http://www.gates.com/brochure.cfm?brochure=1033&location_id=542
Am I missing something?
The OMC outboard based engines were water cooled while pretty much all snowmobile engines were air cooled back in the day, Most were fan cooled while some of the higher performance sleds were ‘free air’ cooled meaning that they relied on the sled’s forward motion for air flow over the cooling fins of the engine. The performance advantage was realized because of the lack of parasitic drag normally induced by the big cooling fan bolted to the mag side of the crank. Free air cooling was not a particularly reliable configuration so liquid cooling began to appear later in the 70s. Most snowmobile engines were still fan cooled well into the 80s and they are still available today on entry level sleds and utility sleds popular in the far north.
32 bhp may not sound a lot but it should be pretty exciting on snow.The Yamaha RD 250 2 stroke twin turned out similar bhp and was a bike that was a lot of fun.
The average weight of sleds in the era was less than 400 pounds and with the rudimentary suspensions these had, 32 hp was more than enough to get into trouble.
Nothing I love more from the late 1960s than the great snowmobile boom and bust and the crazy variety of sleds there were. I get so tempted sometimes to acquire one until I remember how useless most of them were. Still occasionally using my 1970 Skidoo Alpine Twin track on days when I feel man enough to handle it.
SWEET!
That engine must have been noisy indeed. Neat looking Snowmobile to boot.
In 1971 I got this for Christmas. Johnson Skee-Horse
With the very cool flip-up headlight
These were cool. They looked very modern at the time.
30hp, reverse, electric start and that pop-up headlight… It wasn’t a car, but to me it was the next best thing. It even had a cigarette lighter
It’s funny, but that color scheme looked completely natural at the time.
The trailer used to be a very popular accessory.
Even more so than cars from that era, I find seeing these, puts me right back to that time.
I hated the color until I realized how much of a safety advantage it was. Can you imagine Polaris and Ski-Do were making white snowmobiles
With that color scheme, I used to think of them as being the official snowmobile of the Miami Dolphins.
In my area, you’d see groups of 40-50 riding the trails at 10pm at night, in a long convoy. And they’d all have florescent flags, so visibility was never an issue.
There is a snowmobile museum in the upper peninsula of Michigan. I believe the town claims to be the birthplace of the snowmobile.
Dang ! Nice Snow-Cruiser ready to be restored
I had no idea OMC marketed snowmobiles in Canada..
I am a former snowmobiler that really enjoys the older sleds, This Bolens is probably my favorite.
My goodness, I just snapped one of those in a junkyard two months ago. Now I REALLY have to do a Junkyard Outtake: Snowmobile Edition 🙂
I believe George Lazenby courted Diana Rigg, while riding one of those in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”.
Mercury Marine also made snowmobiles in the sixties also 🙂
Indeed they did! A little teaser is attached.
Everybody and their sister was making snowmobiles in the ’60s.
Years ago It seemed that everyone was getting into snowmobile manufacture. I had a friend that bought a new Massey Ferguson Snow-Jet. I rememember it had a Sachs engine as did other makes. There didn’t seem to be many of these around bach then.
I had no clue that MF made a snowmobile. But it makes lots of sense, giving they could capitalize on the brand name.
My mistake it was a Ski-Whiz made by MF
Thank you! Now that is a rarity. It even resembles one of their tractors.
Cool old snowmobile, but the first thing I thought when I read “Snow Cruiser” was this:
I had never heard of the Antarctic Snow Cruiser so I looked it up. Interesting story, unfortunately the performance of smooth tires on snow was not very well thought out and sand was not a good substitute for testing. Funny how they engineered such a complex system to retract the wheels for crossing crevasses but evidently didn’t put any thought into traction or floatation. I like how it was built in just 11 weeks and then driven 1000 miles to the boat.
Cool old sled. I don’t recall ever seeing this brand, but there were lots of Polaris, Arctic Cat and of course the yellow and black Ski-Doo around in those days. My family didn’t have sleds, but friends of my parents did and I recall multi family excursions into the woods for a winter picnic with 2 people per sled. It was always a thrill when we kids were allowed to drive. 40 mph on one of these feels a lot faster than it is.
Sledding these days is a lot different. $20,000 plus machines are not at all uncommon around here and some of them will exceed 100 mph. They are also used for “high marking”, which is essentially riding as far up a steep slope as you can until the machine loses traction and then kicking it around and coming back down. Imagine a hammerhead stall on a snow covered vertical slope. The guy who gets the highest “mark” wins. Unless an avalanche comes down on the participants first. Darwin takes a couple of folks that way every year.
I enjoyed the pictures, they brought back some happy winter memories.
My father and me sometime in the early 70s