The ThunderJet

Shortly after Conroy Company purchased Sno*Jet snowmobiles, an engineer named Duane Aho was given a special job. This man was responsible for the conception, design, and development of the new racing snowmobile called the ThunderJet.


The first units were completed prior to the 70-71 season. The alluminum chassis worked out great. One hundred were produced in 71, and they all came the Yamaha 440 free air engine. It had the alluminum chassis, a cleated Arctic Cat track and Sno*Jet clutching They tried to adapt these changes to the G.T. but encountered many problems and gave up. They weren't competitive enough to keep up with the other sleds that were burning alcohol so they brought another young fellow who helped develop the machines who was a brilliant innovator, great racer, inventor and mechanist. His name was Jim Adema.


In 72 the team made some changes to the sled, you were able to quickly change the ski to ski stance, the ski to track stance, the length and width of the track, four different seat variations, four different variations of handlebars and so on. It was then given to Jim to test out and they realized that is should be lower, wider and more distance between the ski and track. The horsepower could also be overcome by reducing weight. This design was pretty much kept for all the other years. It was available with 4 different engines, 295 single, 340 twin, 440 twin, and 650 twin.


At the races, the Thunder Jet was called the Thunder Chicken, and the sled that was run over by a truck and so one, but after they saw what it could do they admired it and wondered how it could do that. Probably on of the most famous victories was in Peterborough Ontario, in a five lap race, Jim lapped everyone once. The Thunder Jets saw many victories over the years all over the country.


The last year for the ThunderJet was in 75 it was a 440 free air engine, mikuni carburator, and an arctic cat drive clutch. The company was sold and that was the end of one of best racing sleds ever, The THUNDER JET!