John Zeglin

Credentials : Longtime rider and vintage enthusiast , co-founder of the Midwest Ride-In ( a . k . a . “ Waconia ”) vintage event , 2013 inductee into the Snowmobile Hall of Fame

BY JOHN T . PRUSAK

What is the best-looking snowmobile of all time ?

That simple question became the subject of an intense debate among snowmobiling friends one day in Wisconsin . So much so that one of the debaters – TA Motorsports dealership owner and sledding super-enthusiast Rich Rothmund – called to try to draw us into the argument .

We refused to step directly onto the landmine . But we loved the concept , and soon Rich had talked us into this story . So , we reached out to some non-partisan , high-profile collectors and historians in the snowmobile market to get their nominations .

It seemed like a simple enough task , until we started digging into the minutia . We ’ re talking about a recreational sport with a long and colorful history that at one point in the 1970s featured more than 300 identified brands . Picking 10 brands would have been difficult , but 10 individual machines by make , model and year ? That ’ s quite an ominous task .

Another challenge was determining whether exotic race machines should be considered . But how would one rate Ski-Doo ’ s Karpik Special , Gilles Villeneuve ’ s twin-tracked Alouette and various brands ’ Sno Pro race sleds against consumer-focused , mass-productions Panthers , XLTs and SRXes , for example ? So , we set the following ground rules :

• Nominated sleds needed to be full-production , consumer-available machines , not one-off race sleds or odd , experimental stuff that wasn ’ t readily available to Joe or Jane Snowmobiler .

• Sleds were to be judged entirely on visual appearance . “ The nominated sled ’ s

1 . 1975 Ski-Doo T ’ NT 245 RV 2 . 1978 Polaris TX 3 . 1974 Sno Jet Thunder Jet 340 4 . 1980 Yamaha SRX 440 5 . 1973 Ski-Doo T ’ NT F / A 6 . 1972 Rupp Nitro 7 . 1978 Arctic Cat El Tigré 8 . 1974 Roll-O-Flex Wild One F / A 9 . 1985 Polaris Indy 600 SE 10 . 1977 Scorpion Sting

John Zeglin said the 1975 Ski-Doo T ’ NT RV was “ easily No . 1 on my list ,” and when the votes were tallied it finished on top overall . The image above was from our visit to the Ski-Doo Design Center in Valcourt , Quebec , in 2019 .

historical significance , handling prowess , performance , etc ., are not to be factors ,” we told our judges before getting somewhat crass to drive home the point . “ We ’ re asking you to be stereotypical shallow males here – her personality and intelligence don ’ t matter in this contest , it ’ s all about how she fills out the dress , so to speak !”

We asked judges to give us their 10 best . Not surprising , our own snowmobile historian and Flashback columnist David Wells far overdelivered when he replied to our email query in less than an hour with a wellthought-out list of more than 25 sleds , with subcategories adding even more machines ! Midwest Ride-In co-founder John Zeglin responded next , and his list topped 30 sleds .

36 / FEBRUARY 2025 / SNOWGOER . COM