This is what happens when it snows too much ! I saw that video of the 1926 snow tractor bouncing around on the HAMB and thought that was a very interesting approach to solving the problems of the day. Then on CraigsList, while searching for some hemi junk, I saw an antique Massie Ferg. tractor with a 392 Hemi that had some interesting pioneering Tractor pull history and that was relativly cheap considering it had a fresh 392 in it. looked pretty cool Zoomies and all. I immediatly thought of that 1926 snow tractor and thought well,,,,, now were talking! A 392 snowmobile, but still a tractor not too cool. My little nephew has been bugging me the last few weeks to built something with him, my sister and him are thinking gocart. They have got me thinking about some cool stuff. Maybe a mimi of my car, monster truck, nothing has been catching my fancy. Then I see this thing, not sure if its real or photoshop-ed. Any info would be appreciated if you have it. A search on snow hot rod t brings up pics but no info that I found, its on a few sites and says may be in michigan thats all. I figure a HAMBer is going to know before anybody else. I have a spare model A frame, a fresh 392, a ready to be build 331, a 354 than needs tore apart. a sbc 350/th350 thats taking up space, and a buddy of mine has a few parts only snowmobiles. FG T bodies are every where. So, would you try this? Some will ask why, I'm going to ask how? swapping tracks & skis for wheels in summer would be a plus.
If you got the time, the tools, the parts, the scrill and the initiative ... do IT! But be honest... you're not building that for your nephew are you? Ripping across a frozen lake up here in that thing would certainly take a little of the sting out of winter.
My nephew has enough to play with, he masters the skill and gets bored and wants to move on to the next challenge. He wants to build stuff and bad, so no, the end product is not really for him but the building process would be. My next post is going to ask what kind of BS I can feed to my sister.
That one has some years under it's belt by now,the guy who built it is from Sweden and that thing really worked,been on some tv-show and in some magazines but it's almost 10 years or so since it was done.There is an old website with build-pics check it out and take some copies so You can build Your own: http://www.snowmonster.se/main.html The builder has moved on and his latest build is a 61 Chevy called Chemeer with all the mechanics from a BMW V12,plenty of work on that one but not really HAMB-material. His two son's runs a Pro Mod-team here in Sweden and daddy is there to help out. Busy guy that one...
Thanks Havoc Bender, I knew some HAMBer would know something about it. I'm going to have to figure out how to translate that. the home page is in English, and the spec page has a translation feature that works, but not the rest.
I would kill myself with that thing!! Maybe thats why the wife just got giddy when I showed it to her...................
newly revealed to me jesse james did one like this on monster garage in 05 but I cant find that yet either, anybody got any Info on his?
Years ago, before personal computers and the internet, I belive Rupp snowmobiles did a rail-job snowmobile that had a large blown motor that looked bad ass. Story was they put it on a lake somewhere, put their foot into it and it just sat and spun the tracks. They finally let up on it and it started to move. They got it up to about 30 mph but started spinning the track again. They finally determined it wasn't going to work. By the time they would have really gotten it going it would have overheated so bad it would have ruined the engine. I remember seeing photos of it but the story is just what I heard probably fourth or fifth hand.
looks like fun, but if I had the energy to build something like that I would use that energy to build a moving van so I could move away from where it snows
I grew up in northern Maine and 'back in the day' there was a road called the Maine-Quebec highway that was open in the winter that went from our driveway straight into the woods for 150 miles to Quebec and they had an event where people came from all over to make that trek and they had some regular contraptions. Like steam locomotive engines with skies; i remember an articulated catapellar (not like a bulldozer catapellar, but a real catapellar) that had wheels on each section as if it could come apart and reconnfigure it self if a part got stuck. Early motorcycle-cum-snowmobiles etcetc. It was a show. I think i recall one of the networks recording that for wide world of sports (if that was a show back then) or maybe the 'movietone' opening footage at the theaters. Wish i had pix, there must be some Mainors on here that recall or have photos. During the summers it was a logging road called the 'Reality' road and i remember going with my dad back 75 miles to get logs in his Mack truck, an old B49
I agree with the notes about the amount of HP/RPM and the tracks spinning. It looks impressive enough, but I think you would have a hell of a time getting hp to the ground. That is unless you have a 4 mile straight line to get up to speed, then slow down. But this is just my assumption from the sidelines.
I posted those pics a week or 2 ago and the thread got deleted... I asked Ryan why, but never got a response... I thought it was a pretty cool winter hot rod...
Would be great right now, hell ya if i had things around to do it... Cuz i got allthe free time in the world...