AmSnow.com is now SnoWest.com
So what's the deal? Snowmobiles can be bad-ass looking. Snowmobiles can have loud motors that emit clouds of menacing blue smoke. Snowmobiles can do burnouts, sort of. Snowmobiles have owners who could hold their own in a brawl and have nicknames like Animal and Tiny. So why have snowmobiles largely avoided the reputation and the legend that automobiles once had and motorcycles continue, to some extent, to have?
Clothes… It has to be the clothes. To steal a line from Billy Joel's Scenes from an Italian Restaurant "Engineer boots, leather jackets, and tight blue jeans" was the order of the day for car and motorcycle rebels of the '50s and '60s. Nothing says "I'm going to hurt you" more than a black leather jacket with a Norton patch on the back and pair of tattered Levis. Nothing says I'm going to buy you beer and tell you a dirty joke more than a midnight blue one piece Polaris snow suit and a sparkly light blue metal flake helmet. I mean, come on, can you really take someone seriously with that many layers of clothes on?
Let's start with the helmet. Snowmobilers pretty much have to ride with one or they will freeze. It's not a matter of helmet laws or being oppressed by The Man, it's called frost bite, which is more compelling than any law I've ever seen. So grow those beards as long as you want and pierce your ears a hundred times, no one is going to see it anyway. And those little pudding bowl jobbies the bikers wear to stay ahead of the law, they don't do a snowmobiler anymore good than a stalking cap. You think you're a tough guy? Have you ever seen someone get punched in the mug in a full face helmet? I have and it's actually pretty funny. The word futile comes to mind.
Then what about the jackets and pants? What word can I use to describe snowmobilers? Um… squishy? Peter Fonda never looked squishy. Steve McQueen never looked squishy. Hell, even a 350-pound biker named Driveshaft doesn't look squishy. With a Stud Boy tee shirt, your favorite Green Bay Packers sweatshirt, long underwear, a pair of sweatpants, and your two piece insulted waterproof quad parka combo, how could you look anything but… squishy. And those nasty tattoos, where are they again? Many of us choose to cover our legs with what; bibs? Not leather chaps, not torn denim, but black bibs that make everyone's butt look like an over stuffed garbage bag. Nice.
Boots are the last in a chain of clothing missteps that helped to remove the snowmobiler from the list of the most wanted. It's hard not to chuckle at a guy in a pair of black side buckle "Steel Shank" snow boots purchased at K-Mart for $9.99 in 1971. How did things progress in the wonderful world of footwear? Try the disco of footwear: moon boots. Then out of desperation and the complete inability to make -99 degree Fahrenheit resistance look fashionable, we went back to quasi-pack boots for a decade. Now we've determined that snow board boots are a good idea, so everyone at the bon fire looks like they are about to fall on their faces at the X-Games.
Don't get me wrong, I like not being looked at as a wretch to society. I don't have to practice my beer bottle breaking skills. I don't have to listen to Steppenwolf if I don't want to. I can shower and use deodorant. I don't mind occasionally being hassled by The Man. And I don't need to carry a switch blade or a pair of brass knuckles. Of course, with all these layers on, I'd probably forget which pocket I put them in anyway.
Thanks to David's Vintage Snowmobile Page for the photo
www.vintagesnowmobiles.com