This is a hack guaranteed to melt the hearts of Canadians whose faces have frozen riding a snowmobile.
Call it the Smart-mobile: a Mercedes Smart car mounted on winter ATV tracks in the rear and snowmobile-style skis in the front.
The bizarre-looking vehicle is the creation of Ottawa mechanic Tod Anderson who modified a 2006 Smart diesel and designed the skis himself.
“It’s just a thought that came to me and it seemed like the right thing to do. It’s a rear-drive, rear-engine car so it’s ideal for this sort of thing. The whole point of this exercise was to see if it could be done.”
He said the machine turns and handles surprisingly well, and can reach speeds of 70 km/h.
Anderson figures the snow-car cost him about $7,000 and took about a month-and–a-half of tinkering. He says it only takes an hour to put the wheels back on.
The invention had been a local secret until someone snapped a picture of the vehicle and posted it on Reddit under the caption, “Only in Canada.”
That post has since gone viral. Many commenters say they would like to tackle winter roads in the jacked-up Smart car but, unfortunately, it’s not street legal.
With a report from CTV Ottawa
