5 Vehicles Built for Winter

While many folks use the onset of cold weather to stay in and hibernate, for those inclined to venture out, wintertime can be a chance to enjoy the great outdoors. But regardless of whether it’s for work or play, the snow and ice found at high latitudes does provide a challenge for conventional vehicles. 

That’s why modes of transportation designed for getting around snow-covered hills and mountains or across iced-over lakes look nothing like what one might ride in summer. Below are five examples of extraordinary vehicles designed to take on — or even take advantage of — the worst winter has on offer.
 

Snowmobile 

Inventors were developing ways to motorize the traditional horse and sleigh shortly after the invention of the internal combustion engine. One of the biggest challenges was finding a way to spread the weight of a vehicle across a large enough surface that it doesn’t sink into loosely packed snow. 

In the early 20th century, French military engineer Adolphe Kégresse invented the half-track, which featured a continuous belt on the rear end for propulsion and conventional wheels for steering. It didn’t take long for innovators in Russia, where Kégresse worked, to mount skis under the wheels to produce a proto-snowmobile. (Even Vladimir Lenin had one.)

Canadian innovator Joseph-Armand Bombardier developed a different track system, using a rubber-and-cotton belt rather than a metal one that worked better for conditions in his native Quebec. The vehicle Bombardier built in the 1930s was still large and featured enclosed cockpits, but by the 1960s, the smaller, mounted snowmobile (also called snowmachines, motor sleds, or snow scooters) started appearing in northern latitudes. 
 

Chairlift

Rope-based transportation systems have a long history, as a rope stretching across a deep ravine is a convenient, if precarious, shortcut. By the 1600s, the first aerial tramway was invented, using a long loop of metal cable rather than rope stretched point to point.

In the 1930s, ski resorts were becoming popular in the United States, but before the paying customers could schuss down a mountainside, they needed to get to the top, and the use of a tow line to pull skiers uphill left a lot to be desired. Engineer James Curran had worked on a continuous-loop system for loading bananas onto freighters; later, when he was tasked with developing a faster way to move skiers uphill, he realized that he could swap out the hooks for hauling cargo nets full of fruit with chairs. 

Like cable cars, the rope is the active part of the system, with a central motor pulling at one end of the lift. Depending on the configuration, the chairs either grip the cable while in motion and detach at the terminus or stay fixed to the cable full-time. Up to 4,000 people can be transported by a chairlift working at full capacity, and at a speed of more than 25 miles per hour.
 

Ice boat

Wintertime is known for more than cold — winds can be stronger and steadier. Combine those two aspects and the potential for iceboats becomes evident.
 
First developed in northern Europe in the 1600s, ice boats work on the same principle as sailboats: wind blowing across a sail creates lift that pulls the boat forward, while a keel enables the boat to travel at angles across the wind. For iceboats, the keel is a pair of skate-like runners that produce almost zero friction.

The combination of lift across the wind and low friction means iceboats can achieve speeds as much as five times the wind speed, meaning they can go much, much faster than sailboats. According to a podcast by mechanical engineering professor John Lienhard of the University of Houston, “The official iceboat speed record remains the one set on Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin, way back in 1938. It was (hold your breath) 143 miles an hour.”
 

Snowplane

Snow and aircraft generally don’t mix, which is why planes are often grounded for deicing during winter storms. But not long after the Wright Brothers demonstrated their propeller-driven airplane, inventors in Russia began developing sleighs propelled by giant fans on their back ends. Even Igor Sikorsky, who is best known for his pioneering work on helicopters, designed and tested a type of snowplane. 

During World War II, these fast and lightweight snow vehicles were used by reconnaissance troops in both the Soviet and Finnish armies. The Colorado company Kristi further refined the design after the war, with their models running on adjustable skis to enable tight turns. While innovative, the concept never caught on and snow planes remained a novelty and hobbyist machine.
 

Snowcat

Snowcats can trace their origins to the same place as snowmobiles. But while snowmobiles evolved to become smaller and more nimble, snowcats – fully enclosed trucks with caterpillar-style tracks replacing the wheels – got larger and more powerful. Several large snowcats built by the Tucker company were part of the first crossing of Antarctica in the 1950s.

Today, somewhat smaller models are used by mountain resorts to flatten and compact the snow to make for better skiing conditions. During the summer, the resorts put the machines to work on landscaping. According to a 2023 article in Powder magazine, that makes snowcats the world’s most expensive lawnmowers. 

Jeffrey Winters is editor in chief of Mechanical Engineering magazine.