The Guidetti Snowmobiles: Many Brands, All Quick Failures
History is filled with stories of continuing efforts that eventually paid off. Except sometimes it doesn’t. There are few better examples of a bad ending than the Guidetti snowmobiles and its nearly a dozen off shoots that were all unsuccessful and consequently are rarely seen today.
Construzioni Meccaniche Guidetti Brothers (Guidetti Brothers Mechanical Construction) of Milan, Italy, began building small gasoline engines under the Condor brand during the 1930s. Used for generators, pumps, compressors and similar applications, roughly 400,000 of the engines were sold.
The powerplants were similar to other small European industrial engines that began finding their way into snowmobiles in the 1960s. So, Guidetti Brothers partnered with local vehicle body builder Portesi to create the 1968 Ski-Condor snowmobile.
Powered by a 20-horsepower Guidetti 448cc four-stroke engine that reportedly did not run very well, limited numbers of these red and white turkeys were built. Most were sold in Italy, but some were imported into Canada by Moleba Auto-Neige Ltd. of Ville Mercier, Quebec, a company incorporated in late 1966 specifically to sell these sleds.
The Moleba Connection
Moleba sold a small number of Ski-Condors in Canada, with a handful re-branded as Moleba snowmobiles. A two-stroke engine option was added in 1969 to try to increase the sled’s appeal to North America buyers.
For 1970, Guidetti engineered a copy of the classic Ski-Doo chassis with updated styling. Incomplete sled kits were shipped to Moleba for final assembly using readily available North American parts. Some received Benelli two-stroke engines. Moleba tried to sell these sleds in the U.S., but the company’s amateurish advertising featuring very poor English only produced more failure.
After bankruptcy, Moleba re-organized in the summer of 1970 with greater capitalization as S.M.T. Manufacturers Co. And, again, they changed the snowmobile brand name, this time to Alaska Ski. But they left the sleds looking pretty much the same, including the red hood color.
Alaska Ski marketing met with scant success, so the company filed bankruptcy again in March of 1971.
More than 1,000 completed sleds plus parts were left, so the receivers held a big bankruptcy sale in April. Some product went to the company’s then “exclusive” American outlet, Hamburg Chrysler-Plymouth, located just south of Buffalo, New York. This large auto dealership sold non-current Alaska Skis at cut-rate prices as late as the early months of 1976.
Distribution Proliferation
While its Canadian distributor was re-organizing in 1970, Guidetti established separate U.S. distribution through the Allitalia Importing Company of New York City. Its red 1971 Hornet brand sleds were essentially more Alaska Skis, but assembled in Italy with Sachs two-stroke power.
Pricing was attractive but sales were again very poor. The effort was abandoned after just one season and the left-over Hornets were included in the S.M.T. bankruptcy sale in April of 1971.
Meanwhile, newly organized S.M.T. set up the Broncco Division of Engine Specialties Inc. of Cornwells Heights, Pennsylvania, as its American distributor for another slightly altered Alaska Ski. Called the Broncco, these sleds were mostly lime green and had a choice of four Guidetti powerplants. My collector buddy Mark Elwell says the best use for these Guidetti engines was as a door stop. Again sales were poor, and left-overs went in the S.M.T. bankruptcy sale.
Separately, back in 1969 another group of investors from Quebec and New Hampshire had established Trans-Ski Ltd. to build sleds in Compton, Quebec. They had huge expectations and began buying parts and then rolling chassis from Moleba, adding their own blue hoods and Guidetti or Benelli power. Continuing troubles with the Italian engines resulted in replacement with CCW or Sachs power in most 1971 and ’72 Trans-Ski models, with Guidetti engines totally banished in ’72. But Trans-Skis weren’t selling well either, and that company also went belly-up.
Trans-Ski President Jean Marc Paquette bought the remains of the company and sold off the inventory over several seasons. Simcraft Ltd. of Quebec City bought many components for its full-sized 1971 and ’72 Ski-Pony sleds, but wisely used only European or Japanese power. These yellow variants were also unsuccessful, and Simcraft went bankrupt at the end of the ‘72 season.
Meanwhile Roland Levielle, one of the Trans-Ski investors, began building Rocket snowmobiles in Berlin, New Hampshire. His original prototypes were unsatisfactory, so Levielle began purchasing Trans-Ski sleds without engines. About 100 of these 1972 Trans-Ski-based Rockets were built with JLO power. But Rocket also flamed out after just one year and became more snowmobile history.
Big Boss And Beyond
Aurora Engineering, Inc., of Ovid, Michigan, built a few 1970 Big Boss sleds of its own design. For 1971 the company showed a new prototype built by S.M.T. that was essentially a bright green Alaska Ski. But plans to have S.M.T. build Big Boss sleds never went any further. The few ’71 Big Boss sleds actually constructed were Aurora’s own design that showed heavy Arctic Cat Panther influence, so they were very different from the Ski-Doo-inspired Guidetti sleds.
Aurora quickly failed, too, and the Guidetti snowmobile story was mercifully over.
In the end, red was a really appropriate color for the Guidetti sleds and their various offspring because every company that ever touched them ended up in red ink financially and went out of business. But it’s fun to see the quirky sleds and their various siblings here and there at vintage shows. The Alaska Ski pictured here is one of many interesting oddball sleds found at the fabulous Top Of The Lake Snowmobile Museum in Naubinway, Michigan.
Specs: 1971 Alaska Ski TT 36 Deluxe
Manufacturer: S.M.T. Manufacturers Company Ltd., Ville Mercier, Quebec, Canada, using major sub-assemblies from Construzioni Meccaniche Guidetti Brothers of Milan, Italy, and other sources
Powertrain
Engine: 338cc Guidetti piston-port radial-fan-cooled single, Tillotson diaphragm pumper carb with plastic ram tube, magneto & breaker point ignition, and single pipe into muffler
Lubrication: Pre-mix at 20 to 1
Power output: 25 HP @ 6,000 RPM
Electrical output: 36 Watts
Drive clutch: Centrifugal drive and torque sensing driven
Chassis
Type: Welded and painted steel chassis with stirrups, steel belly pan, chrome steel bumpers and fiberglass hood
Claimed dry weight: 315 pounds
Front suspension: Triple leaf springs
Ski stance: 25 inches
Rear suspension: 12 bogie wheels with torsion springs on three trucks
Track: 15.5-inch-wide Goodyear three-ply molded rubber with nylon & steel reinforcements and dual cog drive
Brake: Friction shoe on driven pulley
Fuel capacity: 3 gallons
Standard equipment: CEV speedometer/odometer, wood-grained dash, plastic storage box between engine & seat, non-slip running boards, padded passenger back rest, tow hitch
MSRP: $1,100