1972-73 Snow Goer: Brut, Yvon Duhamel And More

December 20, 2016 By John Prusak

Snow Goer magazine was launched as the first national snowmobile magazine 50 years ago. To celebrate, Snow Goer is taking readers on a volume-by-volume walk through the history of snowmobiling, as captured on the magazine’s pages. Below is the review of the 1969-70 publishing season. Other years will be also be published — use SG@50 in the search bar on the website to find them. Here’s a link to the opening section plus links to the 1966-67 section, the 1967-68 section, the 1968-69 section, the 1969-70 section, the 1970-71 section and the 1971-72 section.

1972-73

Snow Goer and its spring photo shoot took a dramatic turn to the technical side for the 1972-73 season to gain an edge on a growing legion of snowmobile magazine competition. The spring tests, held that year at Togwotee Mountain Lodge in Wyoming, featured machines run on a chassis dynamometer and subjected to tip-over angle tests, sound testing and more. The editors did note the peril of doing scientific testing on pre-production machines but they logged interesting results.

1972 Snow Goer cover — These Swiss boys had never seen a snowmobile before, but they had no problem mugging for a cover shot for then-Snow Goer General Manager Gene Schnaser

Of the 13 sleds featured in the September issue, the amazing Brut LC44 put up the biggest numbers. Its liquid-cooled, 439cc triple produced 50 hp at 6700 rpm on the dyno, 10 more than its nearest competition – the Alouette Sno-Brute 440, Boa-Ski Mark II R/T 440, Mercury Hurricane Mark I and Rupp Nitro 440 all logged 40 hp. The Brut was also the fastest and the loudest – 67 mph with the limited resistance of the dyno, but an eardrum-splitting 107 decibels at three-quarter throttle. Only the Harley-Davidson Y440, at 103 decibels, was in the same ballpark on noise, but that Harley made only 35 hp. (Loud and slow? Go ahead, Harley haters – have fun with that!)

Other issues included a mix of tour stories (including Vermont, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Washington) as well as a story titled “The Truth About Those European Snowmobile Tours.” There was also a growing section of how-to stories to allow buyers of sleds with less-than-ideal build quality to repair their snowmobiles.

1973 snowmobiles in Snow Goer — This single page from the October 1972 issue of Snow Goer gives just a snippet of the sleds available at the time — check out the many different brands.

The growing popularity of racing and adventure was reflected with an extensive interview with recent I-500 winner Yvon Duhamel, a profile on five successful female racers – including Dorothy Mercer – a tech feature on liquid-cooled engines used in racing and an interview with a member of the Plaisted Expedition that reached the North Pole in 1968.

Taken in a vacuum, the estimated sales of 450,000 new snowmobiles seemed impressive. But the snowmobile world was actually hurting, as inventory levels reached an all-time high of 315,000 units. There was also trouble brewing in the Middle East, and we’re not talking about Maryland.