Snowmobile

A snowmobile, also called a snowmachine, motor sled, or snow scooter, is a motorized vehicle built for winter travel and recreation on snow. Its engine normally drives a continuous track at the rear while skis at the front provide steering, a layout developed to cross deep snow where other vehicles could not travel. No single inventor is credited: Carl Eliason of Sayner, Wisconsin built a prototype called the Eliason Motor Toboggan in 1924, Joseph-Armand Bombardier of Valcourt, Quebec developed a caterpillar track system and began production of his B-7 in 1937, and Polaris Industries produced what is generally regarded as the first modern snowmobile in 1955 and 1956. The earliest machines used industrial four-stroke, air-cooled engines before lighter two-stroke gasoline engines took over.