Midwest Custom Sleds!!

[PowerHouse]

Hey guys!
I'm posting this message to get feedback from the snowmobiling community. I am a 24-year-old Minnesota snowmobile entrepreneur! Some of my background is that I have a mechanical engineering degree in chassis and suspensions and have been working in the industry for 6 years now with some of the most front running companies.
What I am looking for is consumer feedback about producing custom chassis for the midwest snowmobiles. Now you look in every other area and industry and they all have some form of custom machines. Such as mountain sleds with CMX, RMI, and Tison, also the motorcycle industry has an insane amount of custom bikes like West Coast Choppers and Arlen Ness. But then you look at the every day midwest rider and he has to ride the basic manufacturer setup. Yeah he can change the rear suspension, a-arms, engine, and plenty of other add-ons but it truly isn't a performance custom. What I am proposing is producing polished aluminum tubular frames with increased rigidity and less weight, one-piece hoods and a full rolling chassis. Customers would have a multiple array of choices when it comes to purchasing a custom. They could just purchase the frame and hood and use their own sled for parts to finish the custom or they can contract the company to produce them with a rolling chassis. These frames and rolling chassis would not be one-offs but use different platforms for each manufacturer. This would give the customer great flexibility in customizing his/her sled but yet keeps the price reasonable enough for the average rider to purchase.
All I am looking for is to see if there is a market for highly modified, highly polished, lightweight and powerful customs! All replies are welcome, good or bad and feel free to add any suggestions you think are necessary. Thanks for your time guys!


*This Message was edited on 06-Mar-02 12:38 PM by PowerHouse*

[PowerHouse]

For all you guys that want something trick that you can brag to your friends about! Well I could be the man to bring it to you, but I need input so I can produce something that everyone wants. Let me know what your dream sled would comprise off: tubular chassis, completely polished, custom carbon fiber hood, no belly pan just a skid plate so you can show off all the trick parts? Do you want to be able to just buy the chassis and swap parts or do you want to be able to order on-off sleds or better yet a combination of the two? Guys I need to know or else you will be stuck riding the same old OEM's with only small revisions from year to year! Throw some responses back at me!!

[It sleeps in the back yard]

Ok ... I tip my hat toward you, for your vision of a custom built machine. And by the sounds of it you are looking to build some really tricked out machines, In the same idea of the custom built bikes? But what about the trail manners, availablity of replacecment parts ( we do crash into things sometimes ), R&D of rider ergonomics, ect. Sorry to say that if my custom built super sled were to cost me 40-50 thousand dollars , I would want to be able to use it more than two months out of the year. And in the last years, The window of our ride time has become even less! But I must say, to have a machine that far out!!! Wow, Heads would turn on the trails and everywhere else . just my thoughts

[PowerHouse]

What I am looking at doing is offering customers the opportunity to call and order up a new chassis. Such as if someone owns a ZR 800 but doesn't like the rider ergonomics or chassis rigidity. I basically would build him a new chassis or modify one of my own preexisting platforms to suit his needs. Say he wants a centralized mass, standup riding, and rigid frame I would build him a custom frame so that he could use most of his components in the new tubular frame. Yes I would offer many other add-on products to go along with this but the basic concept would be a frame swap. This would give the individual customer the ability to customize the sled to what he wants but still keep the cost down. He would either use most of the components of his own sled and assemble it himself or he could have the company do it. I know what you are thinking: what about the components that won't fit or need to be changed? I would offer the needed components into the package such as a different hood, fuel tank, seat etc. Yes this is a customization to a sled so there will be probably $3,000-$5,000 added cost, but if you think about what the average rider puts into his sled to make it stronger, lighter and more his own, this cost is well within range.
This versatility would give each customer what he feels is most important to him in a sled but in doing so keep the cost of customization down by using crossover platforms. Hope this helps a little more in my ideas, I really appreciate the comments and hope to here a lot more!!

[PRO-X]

How much is a sled like this gonna cost? Because everytime you buy a sled, theres always gonna be something bigger and better for next year. So is it really worth it to pay 20,000 dollars(just guessing)just for a trick sled????