DID YOU KNOW ?

Submitted By: AWSC Vintage & History Committee

Did You Know Ski-Doo T’NT stood for Track N Trail?

Ski-Doo’s T’NT rode on a modified Super 370 chassis that had been strengthened to hold the new beefier engine. There was an angle iron in the engine mount area, stronger ski legs and a spreader bar in the back to strengthen the tunnel.

Helmut Roteh, was the designer of the 600 as head of Rotax’s R&D department. It was an axial fan cooled design with the fan mounted at cylinder level and driven by a V-belt from the flywheel. The 599cc engine had a bore of 2x76mm and stroke of 66mm, creating 35 hp at 6,000 rpm in stock form and 45 hp at 6,800 rpm when modified. The Rotax engine was the first to be specially designed for a snowmobile, as earlier powerplants were adaptations of industrial engines, mostly water pumps.

T’NTs set the stage for all 2-cylinder engines and sleds to follow. Its windshield was angled the same as the hood for a sleek aero look and its designer came up with the Black Dot headlight, a retractable light set in a black dot on the sleek hood.

There also were fiberglass air scoops on the body’s sides and a black stripe that gave it a trim, racy look, especially combined with the Black Dot headlight.

The seat was leaner too with no seat-back, just a hump.

After its successful racing debut, Ski-Doo followed in 1969 with T’NT 399 and 669 models, boasting 30 and 45 horsepower, respectively. Built strictly for racers and shipped to dealers for the 1968 race season, sled historian Phil Mickelson says only 117 were made. Fullerton believes even less than that, maybe as few as 50, and less than a dozen are known to still exist.

This rare breed was to be sold only to racers and then returned to, and sold back to, the dealers or distributors. Bombardier worried competitors would get their hands on the 600cc engine and copy it.

The 1968 T’NT is a very rare sled because Bombardier only produced 125 of these. Two models were produced for 1969, a 399cc and a 669cc machine. In 1970, the line was expanded to five models. 1978 was the last year for the T’NT.