rewind venture capital

One of my many directionless voyages brought me down the sidewalk on the east side of Belmont Road, one of those "busy" streets that a youth is not allowed to cross until the liberating and random age of eight.

I was coasting along on a late fall afternoon, firmly perched on my banana seat equipped Schwinn Scrambler, when I spotted it in a backyard less than a block from home. "It" was a 1969 Arctic Cat Panther sitting alone and lonely like a monument to a more indulgent time. I was instantly and inexplicably smitten with the black and silver beauty.

I could only imagine the scene… On a long forgotten Friday night, Dad pulls into the driveway proudly sporting a new '69 Panther P22J on a shiny black trailer tethered behind his Country Squire wagon. The family got a taste of 25 horsepower mixed with snowflakes, Dad got no sugar from Mom for about a month, and the backyard fence received a facelift when handle bars and body English disagreed. The image played out in my mind like a grainy 8mm movie.

Realistically, the new snowmobile was probably ridden like a rented mule for about a month and then faded into some forgotten universe, like discarded Christmas toys, only you couldn't lose this one under the love seat. Ultimately, the shiny black sled either ended up dying a slow and quiet chemical death in the backyard, or it was paraded on the curb with an orange and white For Sale sign, destined to become someone else's recreational fad. For this ill-fated machine, it was capital punishment chained to the clothesline post.

Cautious of trespassing on what turned out to be a "Judge's" lawn, I did most of my initial investigative work on the Panther like a PI conducting surveillance on a cheating husband. I was drawn to the black beast because my father once owned one, his first snowmobile, before selling it. Based on priorities of the moment, I thought that Panther was the brightest idea since the light switch.

In retrospect, I have to wonder how one could get enthused about a snowmobile with a single cylinder JLO engine that had a piston big enough to make Mr. Coffee blush. To awaken this rotating mass, a recoil as big as a pie tin loaded with 1/8-inch steel braided cable was required. Getting the power to the ground meant three conveyor belts bound with 17-inch wide steel cleats that looked better suited for moving straw bales. The good old days, unfortunately, seemed destined to be measured in minutes and feet, not hours and miles.

After ample consultation with a neighbor, I received intelligence that the good Judge arrived home around 5:30 p.m. each evening. I proceeded to stand across the street, straddling my Schwinn, trying to look cool. At precisely 5:30, I noticed the garage door begin to lift before I even saw his vehicle. I decided to be coy and allow him to at least get in the house and slip off his shoes before I made my move.

I was a bit apprehensive knocking on a judge's door. I envisioned a well fortified compound, where the first sign of intrusion caused armor plates to slide over all windows and doors. Instead, the judge simply answered the door after the second set of knocks and sparing any senseless chitchat, I told him who I was and why I was there.

He responded with an affirmative to the question of selling his once beloved toy. As a kid, encouraging answers to important questions produce a series of cardiovascular abnormalities that can only be described as red ants being introduced into the bloodstream.

We proceeded to stroll around to the backyard and inspect the Arctic Cat. The Panther had had a lot of time to contemplate its existence since leaving a showroom in the fall of 1968, and it showed. The hood was faded and chalky; the aluminum oxidized and dull; and the signature orange leopard skin saddle, which should have looked like something Anne Bancroft might have worn in "The Graduate," was brittle and tattered. But in the grip of futile resistance, the Panther looked like hope to a kid with a 5-gallon pail full of Chrome Vanadium wrenches and a desire to experience the thrill of ownership.

After a brief bargaining session from $250 down to a bottom line of $175, I told him I had to think about it. Wisely, I asked and was granted permission to come over "anytime" and view the machine, without the risk of a swift death from a security sniper's bullet.

It was no use, the image of the Panther was like a sore tooth I just couldn't stop touching. I would stare for hours at my back-issue 1969 Race and Rally buyer's guide. The action photo of the Panther with a very '60s-attractive middle-aged lass smiling and waving as she rode through the shadow of the chalet weighed heavy on my mind. Sleep was lost, grades suffered. Within two days the Panther was sitting in my parent's garage on its way to resurrection, my first snowmobile paid for with my own funds; a milestone that cannot be equaled.

I still have that Panther for some reason, maybe as a reminder of youthful independence. When I think back on it now, I sadly smile at what the youth of today are missing from the bargain excesses of yesterday.

Will a 10-year-old ever straddle his bicycle, staring into the backyard at an abandoned Polaris Indy 500? Will two teens in a pickup ever experience the excitement of locking up the brakes on a gravel road after spotting a Yamaha Apex RTX sitting forgotten in a rural tree line?

It seems doubtful, but with all this vintage fever surrounding snowmobiles right now, there might be hope. Hope, that a 10-year-old will once again get the grease of yesterday's impulses under the fingernails of today.