We know, we know. Winter is not something most hot rodders look forward to. Your race car is parked, your street machine is not making any noise, and we all start to count the days before Spring arrives. There are, well, there were a select group of racers who craved the sub-zero temperatures of winter and those were the men and women involved in unlimited snowmobile speed runs. We’re not sure what the state of this sport is in 2021 but we do know that back in the 1970s and through the late 1980s there were some amazing machines built to really make big speed on the ice and snow. This video shows many of the fastest such machines in America about 30 years ago.
The Exciting World of Speed and Beauty is the show where this segment comes from. We remember watching it back in the day as kids and while we do not specifically remember this episode, the program profiled people and machines that went roaring across asphalt, water, dirt, and yes, ice every week.
Remember that Henry Ford once set a speed record on a frozen lake so all the stuff you’ll see here was following in his footsteps. From blown alcohol V8 engines to multiple small power plants, the sky was the limit in this era so long was it was propelled by a track and steered by skis!
