‘Whitefox’ concept is a four-passenger snowmobile

The Whitefox concept is a four-passenger snowmobile that can run in existing snowmobile trails. It would be equipped with a 165-horseppower Rotax 850 E-TEC engine.

It’s an idea from Canadian engineer Charles Bombardier, dubbed the Whitefox Concept.

With enough space for a family of four , the Whitefox is designed to use a 165 HP Rotax 850 E-TEC engine that can get up to 19 MPG. Weighing less than 900 pounds thanks to its plastic body, the Whitefox would have the ability to heat its seats with the engine’s cooling system and could handle both ski and snowboard racks.

When the weather takes a turn for the worst this time of year getting around town from holiday to party to holiday party can be quite a nuisance – if not impossible – in some cases. That is, unless you have one of these snowmobile/minivan crossovers that can get you and your loved ones over the snowy hills and through the woods in even in heaviest of blizzards.

The skis on the Whitefox can be replaced with pop-up wheels to make that transition from snow to asphalt an easy one.

It  has plastic body panels and weighs under 900 pounds.

Currently Whitefox is still a concept snowmobile.

Background
In 2001, Charles Bombardier was incharged with developing a side-by-side snowmobile project for BRP that was later called the Ski-Doo ELITE. In fact, the Elite was the last snowmobile built under the name Bombardier before the company became BRP. The last unit rolled out of the assembly line in Sherbrooke, Québec on December 24, 2004.
During the development period , I asked my friend Yves Bergeron to build a stretched out version to sit four passengers. This project led to a prototype, which you see here in modified photo renderings. This vehicle could be rebuilt as the Whitefox model—a snowmobile built to carry a whole family.
How it works

We basically took an old Elite prototype (to save cost) and stretched it by three feet. We added two seats and traded the 140-horsepower, four-stroke Sea-Doo engine for an 850cc two-stroke engine by Rotax to reduce weight.
The original side-by-side was made of fiberglass, but I would instead redo the body work digitally and factory print a new body made out of plastic. With this change, the vehicle would probably weigh less than 900 pounds.
The Whitefox could be introduced with a built-in ski and snowboard rack bolted on top of its upper frame. Each seat (or the floor) could also be heated by using the engine’s cooling system, and fans could also divert hot air on the riders’ legs, which could be covered by an insulated blanket.

We would also add the power steering of the Spyder and Can-am lineup while modifying the steering controls to improve ergonomics. In fact, it would probably be better to introduce drive-by-wire to ease pressure on the thumb and calibrate sensitivity more adequately. I would also add pop down wheels on the skis to facilitate turning on asphalt or hard surfaces.