SYMBOL OF MAN’S ceaseless pursuit of new frontiers, or 35-ton white elephant? Either way, no one could deny that the ANTARCTIC SNOW CRUISER provided boffo entertainment for thousands as it lumbered from Chicago, where it was built, to Boston, where explorer Richard Byrd’s polar expedition was waiting to ship out. The dream of former Byrd deputy Thomas Poulter of Chicago’s ARMOUR INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, the motor home on steroids could sleep four, carry a plane on its back and boasted a retractable wheel system to help it over small Antarctic crevasses (but apparently not big Midwestern ones). Once in Antarctica, the cruiser worked great–as long as no one tried to move it; its massive tires couldn’t grip the snow. World War II cut short the expedition, and the vehicle was last seen in the late ’50s under 14 feet of ice.
– Number of cars in the traffic jam caused by the vehicle’s passage through Framingham, Mass.: 70,000.
– Number of Hummer H1s you would need to equal the weight of the snow cruiser: 9.
– Number of billiard tables on Byrd’s manifest: 2.
– Estimated percentage increase this year in tourists visiting Antarctica: 42.
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“The pity of it all is that it just misses being the perfect machine for the work.”
–F. ALTON WADE, CHIEF FIELD SCIENTIST OF THE EXPEDITION
