I only recently heard about the 1939 snow cruiser, brainchild of Thomas Poulter for Richard E Byrd's US Antarctic expedition.
37 tons with two Cummins diesels that supplied power to an electric motor at each wheel.
It was a mobile base camp with sleeping quarters, kitchen, workshop, dark room and a biplane strapped to the roof.
It was given a test drive of 1600 miles across America, where it managed to cause a 70000 car traffic jam.
Unfortunately, it had bald tyres and once on the snow, could only drive in reverse!
More here
Antarctic Snow Cruiser
- Drum
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- mercrocker
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Re: Antarctica Snow Cruiser
Great story, I hadn't seen that although I've read references to it in various Popular Mechanics-type publications.
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Re: Antarctica Snow Cruiser
I've been fascinated by that for ages, they think it's final resting point is the bottom of the sea somewhere as the ice it was left on went adrift.
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Re: Antarctica Snow Cruiser
They found the remains of the camp sticking out the side of an iceberg. The cruiser will likely have sunk.
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Re: Antarctica Snow Cruiser
That bloke Calum has made some nice videos. iirc he did one of restoring a Record vise.
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Re: Antarctica Snow Cruiser
But yeah, fascinating invention the Snow Cruiser. Never heard of it before a few months ago
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Re: Antarctica Snow Cruiser
They probably just needed snow chains.
They could've stolen the boat's anchor chain, probably would've worked.
They could've stolen the boat's anchor chain, probably would've worked.
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Re: Antarctica Snow Cruiser
They tried chains, see one of the pictures above. The tyres look too soft for the chains to work though. Also not enough chain.