Harley-Davidson Once Sold Snowmobiles
Parent company AMF hopped on the sled bandwagon in the early 1970s.
Autumn is quickly shifting into winter in several states this week, as a foot of snow is falling in South Lake Tahoe and the white stuff is blanketing parts of New Hampshire. Although I’m 11-plus years removed from living in the Midwest, I carry fond memories of zooming around Pelican Lake in north central Wisconsin on my parents’ snowmobiles, striking fear into my wife as my brother Joel and I raced across the snowy ice at a squillion miles an hour.
So it was rather enlightening to discover that the venerable Harley-Davidson made and sold snowmobiles between 1971 and 1975. Corporate parent American Machine And Foundry Corporation (AMF) owned Harley and Aermacchi, which manufactured the two-stroke engine in its Italian facility. Harley advertised its "exclusive new transmission/drive unit with a 4.5:1 ratio for explosive acceleration off the mark" and a 10-inch disc brake.
Aermacchi's two-stroke parallel-twin engine powered the sleds, similar to what most snowmobile manufacturers like Polaris, Bombardier, and others were using. The inaugural 1971 model had a 398cc 30-hp engine with hydraulic damped skis. Harley eventually introduced a 440cc model (actually a 433cc), a common class for large-engined snowmobiles. Harley snowmobile models were the Y-398 and Y-440, with the option of pull or electric start. My right arm still hurts with the memory of yanking on the rubber-handled cord of my dad's Arctic Cat.
So how did Harley get into making and selling snowmobiles? It all began in the early 1960s with the Western Tool Division of AMF designing the Sno-Clipper and Ski-Daddler Power Sled. More than 3,000 units were sold through 175 dealers in 1966, and two years later the Ski-Daddler (catchy name, eh?) was manufactured in AMF’s York, Pennsylvania, factory, where Harley motorcycles are still made today.
In late 1971—two years after acquiring Harley—AMF redesigned and rebranded the snowmobile line, dropping the Ski-Daddler name in favor of the Harley-Davidson brand. 1972 was the last model year for the orange AMF Ski-Daddler snowmobile line.
Harley-Davidson dealers were offered the Harley snowmobile line as a separate product; some former Ski-Daddler dealers were also offered the Harley snowmobile franchise. The Harley sleds were assembled at the company's Oak Creek, Missouri, facility, sharing production facilities with the Harley-Davidson golf cart.
By the end of the 1975 snowmobile model year, it was announced that production of AMF Harley-Davidson snowmobiles would be discontinued. Approximately 10,000 Harley sleds were manufactured, with a few on display at various Harley dealerships and museums around the world.
This article originally appeared on the Cycle World website in 2017, when I was Senior Editor.