1971 shark by brueshoff

From 1968 until 1970 there was only one snowmobile manufacturer in the state of Colorado, Chaparral, which was being built in Denver. This all changed when Floyd Brueshoff came to town with his own idea of what a snowmobile should look like and how it should be built. He desined and built a lightweight sled featuring great flotability such as the snows found in the High Mountain Country of Colorado. He also thought that a wide track (18") would solve the "tip-over" problem and tests in the mountains in the Denver area proved that he was correct.

After months of testing and looking for a suitable name, he finally settled on "Shark" because of its wide mouth appearance which did indeed resemble a shark bearing down on you. At the time, the Shark featured the highest horsepower to weight ratio in the industry.

The sports car appearance gave a sweeping low profile with a low center of gravity. The sled was only 37 inches high at the top of the windshield and had a ground bearing contact of 1,295 square inches on the 18" wide track. Among the many standard features was the Positive Steering design, a 42" seat to allow two persons to sit comfortably and a storage compartment built into the rear back rest. The cowl featured twin 35 watt headlamps which provided great illumination for night riding. Other standard equipment was a tool kit, extra fuel filter, power tuned muffler, tinted windshield, chrome front and rear bumpers as well as a rear hand rail. Sled assembly featured aircraft type locking nuts and bolts.

The first sleds were built at 1452 Poplar Street in Denver, Colorado under the company name Shark Manufacturing, Inc. Orders were pouring in and it soon became apparent that the limited production space at the Poplar Street location was holding up production and a search was made to find a more roomy facility. Such a location was found and a beautiful new building was erected at 15952 East 17th Street in Aurora, Colorado.

This new facility provided more than 15,000 square feet of manufacturing floor to build both the Shark sled and the Shark boa. By September of 1970, the sleds were being built at the rate of twenty sleds per day and orders were coming in from dealerships from New York to California, Minnesota and Canada.

My interest in these sleds began the day that I saw a picture in the Denver Post showing the assembly line full of Sharks. I began calling my friends in the area but over thirty yeas later I still had not been able to locate even one sled. If I hadn't seen the picture in the Post, I would have thought I was seeing things.

It wasn't until I attended a snowmobile show during June of 2001 in Milbank, South Dakota that I began to get excited all over again. There, in one of the displays, I saw what I had been looking for over the past thirty years: beautifully restored Shark. The best part of all was the fact that the display was owned by my old friend Dan Pickenpaugh from Elizabeth, Colorado. A few years back, I had stopped at his home while on the way home from Bobby Unser's ranch where I had acquired a quantity of Chaparral parts. Dan needed some of these parts and an exchange was made. Getting back to the story, I asked Dan if there was any way he would give up ownership to satisfy my dream. The answer I got once again proved that snowmobilers are the best people in the world and the cream of the crop are from the west.

Thanks to this good-hearted westerner, the Shark is now in my pole barn.