{"id":17,"date":"2014-08-22T03:20:07","date_gmt":"2014-08-22T03:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/store.omiemedia.com\/?page_id=17"},"modified":"2014-08-22T16:22:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T16:22:00","slug":"history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/store.omiemedia.com\/?page_id=17","title":{"rendered":"History"},"content":{"rendered":"

History\"snorunner_newsclip\"<\/p>\n

One\u00a0story I heard\u00a0goes that the snorunner started as a military vehicle.The army wanted a snow vehicle that was light weight and had a range of 30 miles to transport a soldier. So they paid Chrysler in 1977 to make one including all the dies and development of it. So Chrysler came up with the snorunner, The story goes that the military version could go 35mph, a friend of mine had one with dual carbs.The military checked it out but they didn’t want it because it couldn’t go in powder snow, so in 1979\u00a0Chrysler offered it to public. They first detuned\u00a0it to\u00a0make it go slower by\u00a0adding a extra thick head gasket.\u00a0You could buy a new one in 1979 for $900. In 1980 things were near bankruptcy at Chrysler so in 1982 Chrysler quit selling them. They had about 4000 left so they sold them all to COMB liquidation and they changed the name to snorabbit by putting a snorabbit sticker right over the snorunner sticker\u00a0they sold them\u00a0for $288.00 each in the back of magazines. The remaining parts were also sold. The people I talk to think there was between 28,000 made, we will probably never know.<\/p>\n

Here is another story sent to me with a picture:<\/p>\n

Hi Walt,<\/p>\n

Interesting photos. I\u2019ve attached one of my photos. The second photo does look similar to the Echo bikes I have but the frame is different. It has a smaller steer tube and is at a much steeper angle than the Echo. The story is interesting and I\u2019m not in a position to dispute it. Here is my story I got from the Service Director at Echo who was on the snow bike design team back in the early 70\u2019s for Echo.<\/p>\n

Apparently this fellow who had a patent right to the design of these snow bikes asked Echo USA to market snow bikes with royalties going him. The problems they had were Three fold.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u00a0Bombardier (Ski Doo) and John Deer threaten legal action against Echo if they were selling the bikes without brakes and lights. Apparently this went against a mandated rule that snowmobiles must have these features. In fact this was a feeble attempt by them to stop Echo from selling these things. They felt very threaten by these bikes. Imagine a person could purchase 2 snow bikes for way less than the cost of 1 snowmobile and not have to worry about hooking up a trailer and storage space associated with both. Installing lights and brakes would have complicated the design and increased the cost.<\/li>\n
  2. The second problem was the engine. Not a quality issue. The Kioritz SBE-80 engine (Now called Echo) is legendary in reliability and power. The fact that my two bikes are still going strong after 30 years of abuse with absolutely no problems says it all. The problem was they were built in Japan. The US government at that time was sensitive to offshore imports and imposed restrictions even though 95% of the bike was US made and assembled. \u00a0It sounds silly but I guess the fact that these bikes were considered transportation so they came under the same mandate as the Japanese car manufactures.<\/li>\n
  3. The initial production numbers were projected around 10,000 per year. This was considered not enough for the designer\/patent holder. I guess the numbers wouldn\u2019t get him the millions he\u2019d hoped for.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So the heads of Echo power equipment in Japan decided that these issues were not worth the effort to market the bikes in North America. They had at that time built a few thousand of them. So they collected what they had and disbanded the project and sold half in Europe and the rest in Japan. The patent holder went to Chrysler with his design with hopes of higher production numbers and I guess the rest is history.<\/p>\n

    Reading the attached story sounds very creditable. Is it possible that both happened at the same time? They both share the same platform.<\/p>\n

    I did find the tail about the fellow towing a disabled snowmobile with the Chrysler snow bike a little bit of a stretch. There is no way a snow bike with a 3\u201d width track and 10hp pull a dead 400lb snowmobile though the woods with 220lb rider to boot. No Way!<\/p>\n

    Thanks<\/p>\n

    Harry<\/p>\n

    This is a picture of the echo snowbike which is similar, with a smaller engine, no brakes or light, but the skis and track are the same<\/p>\n

    \"snowbike_echo\"<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    A Person emailed me this story:<\/p>\n

    7-3-04 Out of the blue this evening, I thought I’d do some searching to
    \nsee if these things were still around… and to my pleasant
    \nsurprise I found all sorts of little tidbits online.<\/p>\n

    My father, Steve Quick, was the engineering project manager for
    \nthe “Snow-Bike” (as he affectionately called it) at Chrysler in
    \nthe mid-late 70’s.\u00a0 I have been searching in local papers listings
    \ntrying to find an old “snow-bike” just for keepsake purposes
    \nsince my dad passed away about a year ago.\u00a0 I now see, that I
    \nhave been searching for the wrong thing – as the name is
    \nactually “Sno-Runner.”\u00a0 All these years, the family has known it as the “Snow Bike.”<\/p>\n

    \"snow_bike_huzk\"<\/p>\n

    My sister and I have been sorting through all of dad’s old things.\u00a0 We came across an old parts catalog and some pictures of
    \nthe first prototype units at Chrysler… and some even taken in
    \nmy parents’ back yard.<\/p>\n

    I see that you maintain an entire business on keeping these
    \nthings running for fans around the country, and I’m wondering
    \nif you might have one for sale.\u00a0 I’d love to get my hands on
    \none, as I was just born the first few years they were on the
    \nmarket.\u00a0 For whatever reason, Dad never purchased one to keep for himself…
    \nThis is something which we never really understood, as this project was
    \nthe pride and joy of his career.\u00a0\u00a0Oh, and that guy on the snow-bike in those familiar
    \n“Chrysler ’81” full-page advertisements is actually my dad \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

    Seeing as the one-year anniversary of his death is coming up
    \n(Sept 13th), the emotions are running particularly wild.\u00a0 To be
    \nable to have a working unit in our posession would really mean a lot to my sister and I.\u00a0 I hope you can help out!<\/p>\n

    I also read your history description on the website.\u00a0 In all the
    \nstories that we’ve heard over the years from Dad, the initial
    \nstartup never had anything to do with the military.\u00a0 It was
    \nactually Chrysler’s last-ditch attempt at trying to prevent
    \nbankruptcy – with project initiation in 1975 (just 6-8months after my dad was hired).\u00a0 He had mentioned military involvements, but certainly not to the degree of which
    \nis mentioned on your website.\u00a0 From what we’ve been told, Chrysler was originally marketing this for the consumer market. Chrysler’s management team was dead-set on getting production started by a given date.\u00a0 The problem was, that the muffler
    \ndesign hadn’t yet been done\/tweaked.<\/p>\n

    A very restrictive, poorly designed one had been used in testing
    \nthat cut horsepower 30%.\u00a0 For the midwest (Chrysler’s
    \norigination – Hartford, WI), the quenched horsepower didn’t have
    \na drastic effect on performance (so said management).\u00a0 My dad
    \nhad pleeded with management to give the design team 2-3 more
    \nweeks to get production set up on a more adequate muffler
    \ndesign. As often happens, management was more interested in
    \nmeeting deadlines than creating a good product.<\/p>\n

    So, after performing exceptionally well at a nationwide
    \nsnowmobile expo in Alaska, the dealerships fell in love with the
    \nlittle Sno-Runners.\u00a0 My dad actually towed a full-size Yamaha
    \nsled out of a wooded area, back to home base during an “obstacle
    \ncourse” race. The Yamaha sled driver had crashed into a tree
    \nrendering the sled immovable.\u00a0 My dad (good size, weighing in at
    \naround 225lbs), with the Yamaha driver sitting on the back of
    \nthe snowbike, behind my dad, pulled the full-size sled all the
    \nway back to base-camp.\u00a0 This really opened the eyes of the
    \nbuyers… and opened HUGE doors for Chrysler sales.\u00a0 Dad
    \nactually would have won due to the incredible mobility and sharp
    \nturn handling the the bike demonstrated compared to the large
    \nsleds.\u00a0 Dad was wizzing right by all of the larger sleds as the
    \ndrivers would have to get off them to physically pick them up
    \nand move them in order to make sharp turns through the trees. It
    \nlooked like Chrysler was going to make it, and survive
    \nbankruptcy… except for this little muffler\/production problem.<\/p>\n

    With the low price appeal (4 Sno-Runners could be purchased for
    \nthe whole family for the price of one large sled from any other
    \ncompetitor) really “sold” dealerships also.\u00a0 This would really
    \nincrease sales for them.\u00a0 A couple large dealers in the Rocky
    \nMountain tourist areas purchased on the order of thousands of
    \nSno-Runners.\u00a0 The key here: mountains.\u00a0 Due to the thinning air
    \nat high altitudes and the restrictive mufflers, the bikes
    \ncouldn’t even move out of their own way – they were now down to
    \nabout 30% of their original power capability up in the
    \nmoutnains.\u00a0 The dealers quickly denied shipments of the bikes
    \nand cancelled orders like mad.\u00a0 And sadly, so ends the story of
    \nthe Sno-Runners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    History One\u00a0story I heard\u00a0goes that the snorunner started as a military vehicle.The army wanted a snow vehicle that was light weight and had a range of 30 miles to transport a soldier. So they paid Chrysler in 1977 to make one including all the dies and development of it. So Chrysler came up with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-17","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/store.omiemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/store.omiemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/store.omiemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/store.omiemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/store.omiemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/store.omiemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48,"href":"https:\/\/store.omiemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions\/48"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/store.omiemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}