User:SnowCruiser1971

The name 'SnowCruiser' ( spelled correctly ) was the name given to an ever developing, however simplistic and durable design of personalized snow-travel vehicles primarily designed and intended for pleasure use in frigid to extreme-cold environments. The parent company, Outboard Marine Corporation/Company or O.M.C. proudly put forward a number of models of personal snowmobiles from the mid-sixties until the mid-to-late-seventies under the banners: Evinrude, Johnson ( same brand names as their outboard engine cousins ) and in time - solely the name SnowCruiser. The SnowCruiser brand shared the niche market in mostly Central Canada and Mid-West, Eastern United States areas with the other two O.M.C. brands for only a decade before the increasing pressure from competition, growing standards of the industry watchmen, and the ever increasing demands of the public for more style, less weight, more agility, less comfort, more financing, less durability - put SnowCruiser in the scrap iron pile. Snowmobiling was dwarfing into a fashion statement by the late 70s hard, and the object of family-fun, reliable, comfortable and dependable machines such as O.M.C. was known for creating, suddenly became out of fashion with the potential buyers who could get more bang for their buck from other manufacturers who offered more modern style, flashy brand marketing and selling the image statement that the image seen with the older, more conventional style personal use snowmobile was for the older generation.

There was also the bad management of O.M.C.'s resources, which nearly put the entire operation to rest before it even had a chance to demonstrate what quality existed among it's character models. Before long, Evinrude fell away from production, then Johnson not long after that, then while one might think that the less competition for resources would elevate the remaining brand to greater creative design and promotion......SnowCruiser, dispite it's tremendous, solid reputation as a reliable, functional, versatile brand of power-sport equipment or ' Personal Snowmobile ' brand, nearly fell flat on it's face with drastic loss of sales world wide.

The legends of SnowCruiser successes are overshadowed by the parent company's follies and the living legends that helped make SnowCruiser a name across dozens of urban life magazines for that interest nich, are all in the wind such as Paul Bunyan, the idea that The Mounties always get their man, dead or alive....and the like. It is near impossible to find any machines still in regular use today due to the lack of interest of previous owners to preserve what is now one of the rarest specimens of what could be coined: an example of mad-hatter business management, bringing out an unexpectedly supreme example of sound engineering.

The series of models that SnowCruiser offered in the early to mid-seventies for example, came with almost a dozen available options, not unlike luxuary family-sedans of the same vintage by the North American manufacturers - many of which the comforts and versatility of some of SnowCruiser's finer offerings were no doubt modelled after. Several models offered a Reverse gear, extra-wide track, roomy passenger seating, fogg-lights, 12 volt lighters and in one extreme case - an 8 track player/am radio. Unfortunately, that option only worked in moderate temperatures and you could not hope to hear the speakers when the engine was running due to the frequency interferance across the speaker reception. Aparently albums like: Styx, Triumph, AC/DC, Led Zepplin and April Wine were a good listen atop the engine's whirr, but the cold temperatures that the 8-track deck was exposed disabled the mechanism in the deck player and the tape would stick, stay stuck and could not be removed without the rudimentary tools most SnowCruiser models came with as a standard option.

Dispite the relative short-life span of the brand, O.M.C. stubbornly pumped out a surprisingly high number of machines across the Northern Hemisphere before competition became too fierce to compete head to head. The demand for such machines did not deminish however and O.M.C. continued to have replacement components and parts manufactured by a host of other companies for many years afterwards to contend with their hopes of offering their faithful customers with another generation of iron-tough, rugged and versatile personalized snow-travel machines. That did not happen. By 1980 any brand in front of the name O.M.C. was predominately an outboard marine engine, a stubborn brand of grounds-keeping equipment ( Lawn-Boy, Weed-Eater, ect. ) and an amalgimation of a Swedish brand of Chain-saws blended with North-American designed machines that offered the same name as the afore mentioned grounds-keeping equipment - later to evolve into the brand Poulan. Like Snowcruiser, Poulan was a reliable product at a competitive price, but stiff competition and an ever growing disposable market forced Poulan nearly out of business by 1985.

SnowCruiser snowmobiles are almost non-existant today, even in Snowmobile Museums it is hard to find any at all, even the most recent manufactured machines. The name will forever remain etched in the memories of us generation x'ers as the snowmobile with character, that as time went on, and the seals / bearings wore out.......a good-size snowball would help the engine stop when it could not voluntarilly do so on a hot day of trail-riding, or if you did'nt have your mind and your shoulder on the same plane of understanding at the point of ignition ( by manual starting ) those Kohler single-smackers would dislocate your shoulder or smash your face into the unforgiving solid chrome handlebars. Yes, those were the days....before full-face snowmobile helmets I might add.

SnowCruiser.

Stock Foyster