AmSnow.com is now SnoWest.com
This being
AmSnow’s 25th anniversary I thought it a good time to break from our normal BackTracks format for a different kind of reminiscing. In snowmobiling’s early years, as it is today, it wasn’t just the machines that made the sport interesting, but the buyers AND sellers of our favorite machines.
Here’s a bit of what it was like as an early snowmobile dealer.
Small Business Start-Up
Recently I talked to Dair Stewart, from Siren, Wis. Dair’s story was typical of many early dealers. He started as a chainsaw, boat, and lawn and garden dealer, but was looking to become a snowmobile dealer in the ’60s. In 1964, Arctic Cat only required him to buy one sled to become a dealer, but Dair thought Cats at that time would be too cold. He thought the Polaris sled design would be warmer, but they wanted him to take two sleds to become a dealer.
He recalls selling his first sled, a Sno-traveler, to a bait dealer and the second sled, a Colt, to a trapper-hunter. The snowmobile market exploded though and by 1969 he had a hard time getting enough sleds to sell. Eventually he was buying two semi-truck loads, one from Polaris, the other from John Deere.
I wasn’t far behind Dair. My dealer experience started in 1966 when my father, brother and I became a Scorpion dealer. We had to buy three Scorpion’s worth $1,850 (total) and an additional $30 worth of spare parts, plus a dealer sign. Pretty simple!
In those early days it often was extremely difficult to get replacement parts (yes, even worse than today). A lot of years we would rob parts off new showroom sleds and put them on customers’ sleds that needed the parts in order to keep riding. Sometimes we couldn’t get replacement parts for those scavenged showroom sleds until May or June.
Consider this for a little perspective too. In 1969 Scorpion had 136 dealerships in Minnesota. In 1970 our little town of Mora, Minn. (about 2,500 people), had 16 different snowmobile dealerships. Sleds were being sold out of grocery stores, taverns, hardware stores, lumberyards and garages. Everybody wanted, and needed, a snowmobile and seemingly everyone was selling them.
In 1970-’71 there were 629,500 snowmobiles made with about 580,000 sold. Because of that massive overbuilding, Polaris and others actually sent trucks down to the Twin Cities with new sleds in crates and sold them to anyone, literally, off-the-street. Just pay for it and load it up!
Inexperienced customers Most people buying sleds then had never worked on one, let alone put one together.
I remember talking to a family from Alexandria, Minn., who bought a 1969 Polaris Mustang (in the crate) with a 303cc Sachs Wankel motor. They pulled it out of the crate in their garage, took the hood off and put it aside, put the skis on, put fuel in and tried to start it. They must have installed the throttle cable wrong. It fired right up, and luckily the family had opened the garage door because once it got going the throttle stuck wide open!
The sled zipped out of the garage and sped across the yard straight into the biggest tree in sight. The track was still going like crazy when they finally reached it to shut it off. Their new sled was smashed, and they felt terrible. The only bright spot, that hood was still brand new sitting in the garage.
Hearing this kind of story was nearly an everyday occurrence when I began as a dealer. Being a dealer then was an adventure. We met so many enthusiastic trail riders it was a joy to hear all their snowmobiling tales. And it wasn’t unusual then to get a call from a friend around 10 p.m. and go riding until 2 or 3 in the morning.
One more tale
A man in Pittsville, Wis., wanted to be a snowmobile dealer in the mid-’70s. So he ordered three 1976 Polar Bears to get a dealership. He pre-sold two and was going to keep one for himself. He paid for the sleds and was setting them up and getting ready for delivery when he received a letter informing him that Polar Bear sleds had been discontinued.
When he told his two customers about Polar Bear folding both were concerned about being able to get replacement parts and backed out of their purchases. So he put gas in the two 340cc Whip-its and let his kids ride them for a year. The third sled, a Prowler, had a 295cc motor, but nobody ever rode it. In fact, they never even put gas in it!
All three sleds were still in his garage in 2000 when a neighbor stopped and asked if he wanted to sell them. He sold all three, and his dealer sign. All were in great shape. One 340cc Whip-it went out east to a museum and the other Whip-it went to a museum in Minnesota. His neighbor still has the 1976 Prowler and it still has never had gas in it.
In the end, my dad, brother and I were fortunate to have sold Scorpions and Polaris from 1966 through 1981. My brother and I even got to race both brands with many successes in those years. I was lucky and proud to win the world championship in my class with Polaris in New York in 1971.
But mostly we were fortunate to be able to ride many of the other brands during those years, and meet all the great people in the industry and all those that visited our dealership. Sleds are wonderful, but it’s the people who make snowmobiling great!