Here's another snowmobile which was manufactured by a lawnmower company back in the 1970's. The rapidly expanding snowmobile market in the late 1960's and early 1970's enticed a lot of companies to look at jumping into the snowmobile fray.
It seemed like a great concept: sell lawnmowers and garden equipment in the summer and snowmobiles in the winter – all using the same dealers network.
Thus snowmobiles started to pop up from manufacturers like Wheel Horse Products, Massey-Ferguson, Outboard Marine Corporation, Ariens, Bolens, Evinrude and, not to be outdone, motorcycle manufacturer Harley Davidson even jumped into the business.
This brings us to this week's Old Sled Sighting: a 1970's Sno Cub by Yardman. This is definitely one of most unique snowmobiles that a reader has submitted. This is one is an early 1970's Yardman Sno Cub, kiddie-sized snowmobile. This great Sno Cub photo was submitted last fall by reader Yvonne Weston, and the little machine looks like it is in pretty decent condition
The Model 6100-1 Sno Cub had a 4.7 hp, 99cc JLO motor and was evidently manufactured from 1970 through 1972 (though I've seen some models labeled 1974) by the Yardman Company of Jackson, Michigan. They usually had a 10” track and were a great kids machine, weighing in at only 125 lbs.
The energy crisis of 1973-1974 quickly sorted out who were the real players in the snowmobile industry and dozens of manufacturers quickly ceased building snowmobiles, happily returning the garden tractor, lawnmower, boat or motorcycle business.
The Sno Cub only lasted a few years on the market, and it remains a popular but somewhat hard-to-find collectors machine today.
Got an old sled story or photos to share? How about a vintage snowmobile sitting in the back shed? Share it with our readers at SnoRiders—just email: [email protected]
