Harley-Davidson has a well-deserved reputation as a manufacturer of certain products. The toughest and toughest vehicles to roll on two wheels. Of course, this reputation comes primarily from vehicles driving on normal roads (and motocross tracks in a case). But you can’t have a brand that’s been around for decades without at least some experimentation, including both new types of vehicles and the types of surfaces they run on.

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Case in point: For a brief period in the 1970s, Harley-Davidson dabbled in a form of transportation it had never had before and has never done since: snowmobiles. The brand, previously known only for motorcycles, suddenly found itself producing vehicles for snow transportation due to an industrial shakeup. Technically, it still fits the characteristics of a two-wheeler, even though it has tread instead of traditional tyres.

(Featured image by Michael Barera Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0)

There’s a bit of a complicated history that led to the creation of Harley-Davidson snowmobiles, but it all comes down to an entirely separate company called American Machine Foundry, or AMF for short. AMF acquired the entire Harley-Davidson brand in 1969, but had been designing and selling snowmobiles for several years before that. The leading actor of AMF’s snowmobile series was the rather cute named Ski-Daddler.

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Following the acquisition of Harley-Davidson, AMF decided to go all-in on the popular brand and incorporated the snowmobile line into Harley-Davidson’s manufacturing operations. The first Harley-Davidson branded snowmobile was released in 1971. We must emphasize that it was “branded” because these were technically the same Ski-Daddlers that AMF currently sells, just with some Harley branding tacked on to the sides. The only technical difference was Single-stroke engines made by Harley-Davidson added; Other than that, it was more or less the same inside and out. One of the television commercials for these snowmobiles called it “a machine so accurate only Harley-Davidson could have built it,” even though Harley ultimately had little to do with it.

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At the peak of production, Harley-Davidson was assembling snowmobiles as well as its non-bicycle products, golf carts, at its Missouri plant. Unfortunately, this coexistence was short-lived, as all snowmobile production was discontinued in 1975.. This allowed Harley to largely come into her own; until 1981, when the principal shareholders bought the brand back from AMF.

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While AMF relied on the Harley brand to do the heavy lifting of marketing the Ski-Daddler, the unfortunate truth was that the prospect was a bit flawed from the start. The main reason why the Ski-Daddler didn’t do very well even before Harley bought it was that it was missing in terms of power and performance compared to its contemporaries, along with several vital features such as a gas gauge, kill switch, and storage. compartment. If nothing else, the addition of the Harley brand has made the snowmobile a stylish curiosity in the automotive world; Some surviving vehicles have found a place in motorcycle museums and collectors.