The Snow Motor - From 1926

[crokett]

Pretty cool concept. It is fascinating to see. I like that the guy driving it is in a suit and tie.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=568_1233111054

[cgallery]

Now that is neat!

[chopnhack]

Wow, that was awesome crokett! What a piece of Americana... What was interesting aside from the machine and the man's attire ;P was that this was an 11min featurette. I wonder where this was shown? Interesting design and concept. Probably had a lot of application in the midwest and north, and it seemed that the application was easily applied to a tractor or any 20's model vehicle. Great example of American ingenuity. Thanks for sharing that!

[Uncle Cracker]

I saw this some years ago... I remember my thoughts were of Archimedes, spinning in his grave...

[lebomike]

Looks like that thing went anywhere. Great invention. There are some features on there that could be used today.
Thanks for sharing.

[Tom Slick]

That is a great old film.

Looks like the russians played with it also
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uynmApjhWI

[herb fellows]

Really interesting, but I wish that idiot didn't beat the poor horse when he was stuck in the snow, I don't really know what they were thinking when they included that part.

[mschrank]

The way it's dumping snow outside right now, I could use something like that to get home tonight!

[LCHIEN]

my first thought was, pretty neat, my second thought is why did that not survive the test of time?
Automobiles of 1926 are still recognizble as the direct ancestors of the modern autos. Why did this screw drive not win out and modern snowmobiles have this feature?

Maybe:
1. Tracks are stronger, faster and have more bearing surface area.
2. Screw was too tall and ungainly, top heavy, inconvenient to climb onto.
3. Bad marketing

[phi1l]

Probably the screws were just too fragile for real world use, I can easily imagine rocks ripping those things to shreds.

[germdoc]

That's pretty cool. It looks like an evolutionary dead end, like the Betamax. I guess it would do great on low resistance surfaces where it could slice through grooves, like snow or mud. I doubt it could handle rocky surfaces or hard surfaces, like roads.

Tread technology was pretty well advanced by then and could do pretty much everything this could do, and more--look at tanks, snowmobiles, construction equipment, etc.

From the manufacturing standpoint it would be a lot harder to make one of these big ole screws than to piece together a tread from small metal parts, and much harder to repair if it got damaged.

[LinuxRandal]

Besides the above mentioned reasons, they were pushing this as an add on (change back to wheels for the summer). Tracks will take up a lot less room for storage then these. However, I would love to see these on water, not ice.

[phi1l]

Besides the above mentioned reasons, they were pushing this as an add on (change back to wheels for the summer). Tracks will take up a lot less room for storage then these. However, I would love to see these on water, not ice.

Actually this would be a natural for ice around here where all vehicles on the ic are required to have flotation. I would want a wider "screw base" though, it looks a bit unstable for water.

[herb fellows]

Hmmmm....I don't think you'd see them ON water.....

[germdoc]

Actually this would be a natural for ice around here where all vehicles on the ic are required to have flotation. I would want a wider "screw base" though, it looks a bit unstable for water.

Yeah, once it starts to go down into the water you're screwed.