What's your long term forecast for the sport of snowmobiling 25-30 years from now?

[bearrassler]

I think that snowmobiling will be just fine in 25 to 30 years. It was in much tougher shape in the early 80's with Arctic Cat out of business and Polaris about to shut down. People were saying that the prices were to high and we aren't getting snow like we used to. If the US dollar can drop so they can sell lots of sleds overseas the snowmobile companies will have money to invest in new products and help keep the prices in line. In the early 90's I was selling 580 XLT'S for 5800.00 and now you can get an Indy 600 for about 6000.00

 

[journeyman]

People are not flocking up to snow country to live. I don't know about Wisconsin and Minnesota, but the UP is pretty much stagnant and the population is actually falling the last time I checked.

It's all about the jobs. Just a few years ago a whole bunch more decent paying jobs left in Ontonagon,Michigan when Smurfit Stone closed the paper factory. They leveled it within a year too as to make sure it never opened again. That really stunk and I feel for the folks that worked and lived there for years.