This beautiful reproduction poster has been re-mastered from a 1965 Polaris Sno-Traveler “Voyager” series snowmobile advertising brochure.
The vibrant colors and detail of this classic image have been painstakingly brought back to life to preserve a great piece of history.
The high-resolution image is printed on heavy archival photo paper, on a large-format, professional giclée process printer. The poster is shipped in a rigid cardboard tube, and is ready for framing.
The 13"x19" format is an excellent image sizes that looks great as a stand-alone piece of art, or as a grouped visual statement. These posters require no cutting, trimming, or custom sizing, and a wide variety of these frames are readily available at your local craft or hobby retailer, and online.
A great vintage print for your home, shop, or business!
HISTORY OF POLARIS SNOWMOBILES
Polaris Industries is an American manufacturer of snowmobiles, ATV, and neighborhood electric vehicles. Polaris is based in Roseau, Minnesota, USA. The company also manufactures motorcycles through its Victory Motorcycles subsidiary and through the Indian Motorcycle subsidiary which it purchased in April 2011. Polaris no longer produces watercraft.
Edgar Hetteen, who was described by the Snowmobile Hall of Fame in St. Germain, Wisconsin as the father of the snowmobile, and Allan Hetteen were partners in Hetteen Hoist and Derrick Shop in Roseau, Minnesota. Edgar had dropped out of school after the eighth grade in 1934. Their employees, David Johnson, partnered with Paul Knochenmus, and Orlen Johnson, who was the first person to ride a Polaris, decided to create a vehicle that could travel through snow. These vehicles' primary use was to make hunting locations more accessible. David Johnson created the prototype in 1954 while Edgar was away.
Edgar was furious. After creating it using a grain silo conveyor belt as a track, a Briggs and Stratton motor, and an old Chevy bumper for skis, they had their first snow machine. After returning from a trip, Edgar was shown the machine, but was skeptical of its value. and was disappointed that the group had spent company time and materials on the machine. The No 1 sled was soon sold to Roseau lumberyard owner "Silver Pete" H.F. Peterson for $465 in order to meet company payroll.
However, the employees continued to be focused on building snowmobiles and soon a second model was created by Allen called the Polaris Sno Traveler. Polaris was famous for copying other snowmobiles. The first looked and operated like a Bosak Power toboggan and copied their design for the 1962 Polaris L-55 after the Tee-Nee trailer companies Eski-Motor. The first production model rolled off the assembly line in Minnesota in 1956. The original models weighed close to 1,000lb. (450 kg) and moved at a speed of about 20 mph (32 km/h). They came in a two-tone paint job (white below blue with a strip or chrome trim dividing them). In order to publicize the new snowmobile and show their reliability and usefulness, in 1960 Edgar led three snowmobiles on a 1200-mile trek across the Alaskan wilderness, starting from Bethel, Alaska. The trip took three weeks, and much of the time, Edgar struggled to maintain 10 mph over the snow. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner put them on its front page. However, his absence caused problems for him with the company's board of directors. Soon after completing the trip, Edgar left the company in June and started a competing company called Polar Manufacturing in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. The company name later changed to Arctic Enterprises; in the mid-1980s it filed for bankruptcy amid fierce competition as snowmobiles became popular and other manufacturers jumped into the market. The company emerged from bankruptcy and continues on today as Arctic Cat.
Polaris began developing a smaller consumer-sized, front engine snowmobile to compete with the Ski-Doo in the early 1960s. In 1964, Polaris released the Comet. However, the Comet soon ran into problems as it could not travel in all types of snow conditions. Polaris then recalled the sleds and quickly developed a new prototype to avoid bankruptcy. The new model, the 1965 Mustang, became a hit as a family snowmobile and boosted Polaris sales. Polaris continued to develop snowmobiles similar to this model throughout the 1960s-1970s, and went on to become one of the leaders in the snowmobile industry.
In the early 1980's, Polaris started creating an Indy style snowmobile with IFS and a wider stance. They continued with the Indy style sled in the 90's with the Storm, Ultra, and Trail lines, within the last few years Polaris has re-released the Indy. In 1985, Polaris introduced the Trailboss, which is considered to be the first American-made all-terrain vehicles (ATV). In the late 1990s, Polaris introduced the Polaris Rocky Mountain King (RMK)- a snowmobile specific for mountain terrain. In May 2009, Polaris announced the creation of an On-Road Vehicle Division. The new division will be devoted to the growth of Victory motorcycles and other on-road products and brands.
In 2010, Polaris introduced the Polaris Rush snowmobile which had a new suspension system and better trail handling capabilities. This snowmobile is also available with retro graphics on the Rush and Iq models. In late 2005, Polaris Industries announced that it would purchase a portion of KTM Motorcycles. Through this venture KTM has developed their own ATV and Polaris has developed Sport ATVs which utilize the KTM 525 and 450 powerplants.
In 2012, production restarted on the Indy-named sleds (stopped in 2004 with the Indy 500) with the release of the 2013 Indy 600 and Indy 600 SP. For 2014, Polaris will expand the Indy name and provide model variants for nearly all categories (the one exception being the "Mountain" class).
On January 9, 2015, Polaris announced it will be opening a new 600,000-square-foot facility in Huntsville, Alabama that will employ at least 1,700 workers. Construction on the new manufacturing plant is set to start in early 2015 and should be opened by the spring of 2016. The plant will support several core processes including, vehicle assembly, chassis and body painting, welding, fabrication and injection molding.
