Jim Fonger and his Thunder Chickens Sno * Jets
Moto-Ski Lineup
A full family of Arctic Cats
Unusual rides show up, including a 1982 Lenko Larven( right)
“ I got into vintage sleds as a kid pretty big time,” said Paulson.“ It started before I was a teen, when I was 10 or 11 years old. I was into buying them and fixing them and selling them. My dad had an automotive repair shop, and that’ s where I’ d work on them sometimes.”
By his late teens, though, he said vintage sleds faded into the background and cars became his passion. In 2008, his career led him to California, where he currently works as an engineer in the automotive industry.
His interest in old sleds returned“ about the time of the pandemic, when I started doing some research on them again and saw how big the community was.”
This particular project started with a fascination with the 793cc triple-cylinder engine, which led to models that carried
Ron Hall with his El Tigre
it – first an Arctic Cat King Cat he restored and then to the Skiroule RTX 800.
For a little over two years, he has been working on the project with his father whenever he returns to Central New York to visit his parents. His father, Kenneth Paulson, helped chase down some parts and such, Alan Paulson said, but the only time work was done on the machine was when the two Paulsons were together.
Combined, the father-and-son duo probably has close to
200 hours invested in the project, he said. And what were the hardest parts to find?“ Honestly, it was all hard,” he said with a grin.“ I mean, I would say the pipes were probably the hardest, and we really honestly lucked out with that. Also the clutches – the clutches on this are the original style Dayco clutches. It actually has a flat-sided belt on one side. I think Chaparal is the only other company that did that. So it’ s pretty hard to find those parts.”
The biggest reward from restoring vintage sleds, according to the soft-spoken Paulson, is in the research that goes along with it.
“ For me, the best part is just learning about the history of the machines and how they came about and why certain engines were picked or why they did certain engineering aspects,” Paulson said.“ Those are the things that I really like to discover. And we were actually lucky enough to meet the founder of the [ Skiroule ] company earlier this year at the nationals, Rejean Houle, and ask him some questions about it.”
38 / JANUARY 2026 / SNOWGOER. COM