EVERY SNOW CAT HAS A STORY When I went back to work for the Pipeline in Alaska, I worked for a specialty subcontractor that did all the inspection work, Corrosion, X-ray, Electrical, and Certification of Welders. Their office was right next to AT&T Alascom's office. They had a nice little BOMBI. I inquired about it one day. Didn't get much of a response. I said:"hey, if you ever go to sell that thing, give me a call" and left my business card. 2 years later, 500 miles North, reading the Fairbanks Daily News Miner at one of the camps in the Prudhoe Bay Oilfield, I come across this add: "Bombardier Track Rig, submit bids to Barbra Egalbretton" and gave some Anchorage address. the last line of the Add said:"machine can be seen at ...." and gave an address. I imediately recognized the address. I submitted a bid. A month later Barbra calls me up and informs me that I was "High Bidder" and goes on to volunteer that there were something like 70 bidders! A lot of them thought it would go for 50$. I had looked at the invoice, and AT&T had paid quite a high price for it(63,000). People in alaska have 2 and 3 Snow Mobiles, that they give 10, to 12,000$ for sitting in their garages. And they are fully insured for Fire/Theft/Collision like a car. So I had bid it at 10,001 dollars. The next highest bid was 7000. I had "left a lot of money on the table" but was satisfied because to me, a 5 seater snow cat was a lot nicer than a snowmobile. Full enclosed, Heated with whindsheld, wipers lights....what I had failed to notice when I inspected it 2 years earlier was that it only had 4 Hours on it! Bill Guthrie later informed me that it was easily resellable for at least that so I didn't feel too bad about the price. It had an Arctic engine heater system that had acted like a STILL and eventually caused the Glycol in the Antifreeze to gell up and seperate. This in turn plugged up the heater core. I blew out the system with hot water, cleaned the carb, and I had a NEW Snow cat! There wasn't so much as a ding on one grouser. Below: At Yellowstone National Park, after driving this it and my original "Old-Red"(#368) ST4 to see Old Faithfull.
