23 Ski-Doo

Winter officially rolls in at 1:35 PM today. In northern climes, of course, folks have been experiencing winter for some time. Northern Connecticut has plenty of snow for Chris David to try out the Ski-Doo élan that his father, popular Mustang and Tonka authority Dennis David, purchased from a neighbor who was clearing out his shed.

"Ski-Doo" is so well known that it's become almost a generic substitute for "snowmobile." That's with some justification, since Ski-Doo is made by Bombardier Recreational Products. Armand Bombardier formed L'Auto-Neige Bombardier Limitée in Quebec in 1942 to manufacture tracked vehicles for use on snow, of which the Ski-Doo is a direct descendant. The B-series Bombardier, powered by a rear-mounted Ford V8, was used extensively in the Canadian north - I came across this one in Newfoundland in 1993. The concept was also applied to farm tractors, and accessory "Bombardier tracks" were popular with Ford tractor owners who operated on wet ground. Today, Bombardier, Ltd. makes trains and boats and planes, including transit cars for cities in Europe, North America and China and regional and business jet aircraft. The latter include the well-known Learjet line. During the 1980s, they built a version of the Volkswagen Iltis for the Canadian armed forces.

Bombardier Recreational Products, purchased from Bombardier, Ltd. by the Bombardier family in 2003, includes not only Ski-Doo but also Sea-Doo personal watercraft and sport boats, and Johnson and Evinrude outboard motors. The latter two nameplates were acquired when Bombarder purchased Outboard Marine Corporation in 2001.

The élan, built from 1971 to 1996, is a lightweight machine, very popular in the snowmobile boom of the early 1970s and with sufficient following to stay in production for 25 years. The engine is an Austrian-built single-cylinder unit by Rotax, another Bombardier company. The controls are simple, and the seating is roomy enough for two.

Is the Ski-Doo an automobile? Well, it's a self-propelled land vehicle and it does have wheels, although they don't actually touch the ground. I consider it an automobile, but it remains to be seen if Dennis will add snowmobile appraisals to his lines of business.