AmSnow.com is now SnoWest.com
Typically when a snowmobile brand left the market, it was pretty cold and abrupt. No doubt Bombardier had their reasons for slow-walking Moto-Ski out. It’s understandable they no longer desired to compete with themselves, but the two-year wind-down remains one of the most unique endings in the industry.
There were other oddities with Moto-Skis long before the end in 1985. My family’s first sleds were a used pair of 1970 Moto-Ski MS18s that my dad brought home for Christmas of 1977. The Hirth 500-powered pair were rugged and quite durable. However even back then, they were a pain to get parts for. Unfortunately, one of our MS18s wore out a set of track drive sprockets and had to be parked until we wer old enough and had enough experience to figure out how to adapt Ski-Doo parts for her.
Back in 1982 my first snowmobile purchase was a 1969 Cadet 250 with $50 I earned throwing hay. This has always given me a soft spot for orange sleds and a dislike for impossible-to-find driveshaft bearings.
It seemed that those old Moto-Skis were tough enough to survive almost anything … except the brutally competitive forces of the snowmobile industry itself.