With Winter Storm Stella bearing down on the East coast, it is time to make preparations. Clearly this person is already prepared!
CC Outtake: 1998 Chevrolet Prizm – Snow Plow Edition
– Posted on March 14, 2017
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Curbside Classics Archives
Officially it’s a Chevy
Duly noted and corrected!
I’m ready!
But I gotta clear my driveway first.
That Prism is so wrong its right.
I should have had that for the drive to work this morning. But actually there must have been 20% of the normal traffic, so it was actually faster than usual to get here!
I heard on the radio this morning that due to the blizzard, Pennsylvania was shutting down the Interstate highway to certain vehicles, among them trucks, busses, and motorcycles. No joke they really said motorcycles.
Clearly they didn’t see Gene’s pic above!
HA! Right. I guess I need to put of that ride to Pennsylvania for a little while, though.
I used to ride to work in the winter on my Kaw 650. Got blown sideways off the road once, combo of ice-covered road and strong gust. I managed to stay upright, when I reached the shoulder I could steer again, so kept going.
The luxury update that winter was getting a ride from a co-worker in his sand rail instead of riding. It had a little windshield, but no body. I bet that would be banned as well, but it went very well in snow.
PA Turnpike is die-hard about not closing. In all the times I drove the Pike, it only closed once, which was right behind me as I was driving to school. Other people in the class were stranded at interchanges like Carlisle until the removal could catch up. Over one of the mountain passes I drove right behind a 4-gang of plows, and there wasn’t a lot of traffic in my mirror.
This is shaping up to be one of the most significant storms of my lifetime. Locally we’re already well past a foot, with projections putting the total to at least twenty inches by tomorrow. I’m pretty sure we’re going to surpass that and reach two feet. Metro North and all the local interstates are shut down.
Fortunately my future CC is safe and sound inside my garage 🙂
You might need this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efeb6Cg_rkY
Too bad he’s on the wrong side of the country. In Oregon, of course!
Some time ago, I saw a video of a rig like this in action. IIRC, it was made out of a GM A body. With front wheel drive and chains, it was surprisingly effective. I wish I could remember how they raised and lowered the blade.
Let air out of the front tires to lower, pump ’em back up to raise. Easy! 😉
I’ve also seen a plow on a GM A-body, and by the moaning heard it was obviously a four-cylinder. What’s better is seeing a plow on a Corvette. 🙂
Despite that, my favorite remains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJEgkbq_b2Q
I’ve heard they’re using these out on I-90 in New York State, too.
They likely are; when I looked for this video on youtube, I saw a video of one belonging to the NYDOT.
To brag, the tow plow was invented in Missouri!
Viking-Cives is still the only supplier as far as I know. There are a few in service here in BC now. We used the excellent Missouri DOT powerpoint presentation available on line (I found by accident) as a benchmark to set up our training for the operators!
I think it’s still a proprietary item for Viking and I kinda sorta know the inventor. Seeing one of these in action is a sight to behold.
I would love to know which state this is in. Are those front rims put on inside out!? Looks like it had already suffered some front end damage when it was given new life.
This is in Ohio, literally within walking distance of my house. The tires on the front are actually two tires chained together, in kind of a “dually” fashion.
I’m not sure if it is a single piece rim, or even if the outer tire is even inflated.
Maybe two rims welded together? I’ve seen that before (with chains) on different vehicles. Not sure I would describe it as a long term situation though!
Here’s a crop of another shot Tom sent me.
I also saw a picture of a PEUGEOT 504 some where in USA that was turned into snowplow.i think it was a DIESEL.this car is interesting to me,i didn’t know that GM Used to make COROLLAS.
Oh, a Chevy Prison…
Love it. reminds me of an even more far-out passenger car plow I found somewhere on the web a few years back:
Now that’s a Mad Max vehicle if I ever saw one. “Humungus Plowing Company” at your service.
That’s just nuts!
Is that a cinder block just in front of the bumper? I gotta admire this guy’s initiative. Why wait for the snow plow when you can just make your own? All you need is a badge-engineered Corolla and a bit of MacGiver-ing. Personally, I won’t be putting a plow on my Prizm any time soon. On the rare occasions when it snows here in Seattle, I just park the car and get around on a mountain bike with studded tires.
Yes. It looks like he has a winch to lift up the blade. The cinder block likely provides extra weight to keep the blade from floating over the snow pack.
Or a very low budget remake of Soylent Green.
“You’ve got to tell them! The Snowplows are Prizms!”
Well, I’ve used some chain on the hitch of my ’96 Camry to pull out overgrowth and rusty wire fence in my backyard. Maybe something like this could earn me some cash with the other end of the car!
Happy Motoring, Mark
Bare and dry roads going into work this morning, the worst blizzard I’ve ever had the displeasure of driving in coming home. 20 minutes turned into an hour at full clench.
Also, winter storm names aren’t a thing. The Weather Channel’s trying to make them a thing. Please don’t encourage them.
There is no such thing as “winter storm Stella” as winter storms do not have names, as per every reputable meteorological entity in the United States.
You can’t “name a star” for $50, either.
As an amateur astronomer, I scoff every time I hear that scam on the radio. The IAU even has a webpage discussing this.
https://www.iau.org/public/themes/buying_star_names/
That turkey’s only a short distance from my apartment. Keep thinking about stopping in and asking the owner “WTF???”.
now that is thinking outside the proverbial box.