Down through the history of snowmobiling there have been snowmobiles built that fell short of expectations. At that time, the idea behind them seemed good – but the execution just didn’t pan out…

1978 KAWASAKI INVADER

Yes, Kawasaki was in the sno-mo-biz – beyond supplying engines for Arctic Cat.

The company set the market on end in 1978 when it introduced what was arguably the best looking production snowmobile ever built (up to that point).

The Invader was just drop-dead sexy with a dramatic wedge shape and beautiful Japanese fit and finish. The metallic blue and silver matched-die-molded hood and belly were pleasing to the eye from every angle.

It’s no secret the Invader’s bold and beautiful shape impacted the soon-to-be-released Yamaha SS440 and the 1981 SRX 440. Under the hood were beautiful Kawasaki-built 340 and 440 liquid cooled, reed valve inducted twin-cylinder masterpieces.

The engine employed a never-seen-before mounting system that held the engine from the sides, allowing the entire powerplant to be radically lowered deep into the sled’s belly.

Advertising hype included line drawings indicating the top of the cylinder head was actually below the top of the seat. So innovative was the Invader the competition had to take notice and were rightfully concerned this new-OEM might be one-upping the establishment.

Despite what would become known as an effective and reliable drive clutch and what appeared to be a low friction involute drive track and shallow angle-of-attack skidframe, the Invader never delivered on the promise its looks boldly proclaimed.

When push came to shove and the new Kwacker headed down the lake for a full pull, the flagship 440’s performance couldn’t match the Invader’s undeniable good looks.

Almost four years later the Interceptor 550 arrived on the scene and Kawasaki got some revenge. That sled was fast, crazy fast in its day. Unfortunately, Kawasaki had already had enough of the sno-mo-biz and the accountants made it pack its tent after the 1982 model year.

Down through the history of snowmobiling there have been snowmobiles built that fell short of expectations. At that time, the idea behind them seemed good – but the execution just didn’t pan out…

1980 YAMAHA SS440

Here’s another failure to meet expectations set by a multi-jillion-dollar ad campaign. In 1980 Yamaha had the sno-mo-world by the tail.

The Yamaha name was synonymous with innovation, reliability, unequaled fit and finish but maybe not so much with performance. The venerable Exciter and Enticer series sleds were the meat of the company’s product line and the Exciter 440 with its 48-hp fan-cooled, single carb 440 twin was the trail sled to own.

In 1980 Yamaha wanted to leap-frog the competition with the intro of the SS440, an all-new sled powered by an axial fan-cooled 440 twin producing an unremarkable 50-hp – only two more ponies than the EX440 it was destined to replace.

In similar fashion to the ’89 Mach 1 dilemma, the SS440 sold like ice cream at a July parade – before the snow landed. Once in the hands of a legion of new buyers the SS 440 couldn’t keep the old-school EX440 in sight. Screams of foul from the faithful who bought into the marketing hype could be heard all the way to Hammamatsu.

The problem – almost unbelievably – was the track’s angle of attack and the actual motion of the skidframe tightening the rather heavy-ply track as it moved through the skid’s travel. What is still the most involved and had-to-be most expensive in-season recall in the history of the sport was launched in January of 1980.

The fix included a completely new skidframe made with aluminum extrusions, a new front drive axle and a new track. The time required to do the fix was hefty and dealers reluctantly obliged, but the work was so involved they lost money doing the recall on every SS they sold.

So, here we go again – the SS 440 was a slick piece of snowmobile engineering and design that, in the beginning, couldn’t live up to its marketing hype.

Down through the history of snowmobiling there have been snowmobiles built that fell short of expectations. At that time, the idea behind them seemed good – but the execution just didn’t pan out…

1989 SKI-DOO MACH 1

Through the mid 1980’s Ski-Doo had been largely relegated to the back row of the high performance snowmobile market without a big bore, multi-cylinder response to the ridiculously popular Indy 600 and 650 triples and the Wildcat 650.

The hype surrounding the intro of what was billed as the answer to Minnesota’s dominance of the market was this sled: The 1989 583cc Rotax twin powered Mach 1.

Let’s get something straight about this painful story – the Rotax 583 was not the problem – but rather the chassis, and in particular, Ski-Doo’s second-only foray into the world of involute track drive (only the Citation LS 250 utility sled had involute drive at this time).

Some kind of “us versus them” disagreement between the accountants and the engineers in the design of the involute drive skid left the Mach 1 with so much track friction the sled would literally “nose-over” like you pulled the chute at 90 per.

The angle of attack on the Mach 1’s slide rails was so abrupt, track friction was creating parasitic drag on the scale of a scalp lice infection.

The really tough part for Ski-Doo during the Mach 1 fiasco was the large number of units that had been pre-sold for MY 89.

Expectations of the yellow faithful were high when they lined up expecting to tow their bud’s Indy 650 down Kevlar Lake. Instead, the Mach 1 in its first iteration, was unable to beat an Indy 500.

I remember the ultimate insult from a friend who had just blown past the Mach 1 I’d been riding with his Indy 500. He said: “Hey, there’s nothing really wrong with that sled – except the advertising”. Doh!

The next two years, Ski-doo made changes to the track and skidframe and performance improved commensurately.

Down through the history of snowmobiling there have been snowmobiles built that fell short of expectations. At that time, the idea behind them seemed good – but the execution just didn’t pan out…

PRE-1976 ARCTIC CATS

This one is a bit fuzzy because, in our opinion, all of Cat’s offerings in this period had great bones.

The company had always put performance first and really hadn’t built any ugly sisters throughout the 1960s and 70s. Sometime in the ’70s Arctic Cat went exclusively to Kawasaki-supplied engines.

So, why include the pre-1976 Arctic Cats on this under-achiever list? Here’s the rub: Although the chassis design was excellent and often ground-breaking, Cat chose an engine supplier that failed to deliver reliability.

Yes, we’re talking about the Kawasaki years. Those otherwise excellent Arctic Cats were plagued by engines that disintegrated and spat out crankcase seals like used-up chewing gum.

We’re not sure what happened with the original design of those engines because Kawi has always had a pretty good reputation for building strong, reliable powerplants – but in this application it became a problem that took a few years for Cat to overcome.

Eventually, the company completely dumped Kawasaki and went to Suzuki for its engines. After 1976, those Suzook powered models were bulletproof and soon re-established Cat’s reputation.

This is one of those manufacturing nightmares difficult to control when you’re farming out major components. It also underscores how adapting other forms of technology like motorcycles to snowmobile use, doesn’t always work.