How we came to be!! ........The Original V8 Snowblower

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"How did you think of this?" is a question that we are usually asked.

If you really must know, this is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth...at least as best as I can recall.

One fateful day in August of '97, I had been invited to a neighbors house to have a few adult beverages with a few friends. As I arrived, the conversation quickly focused around a vehicle that I had recently acquired. The vehicle was an old Chevy pick up with a big block. I sold parts from the vehicle for days until the last remaining piece was the seized big block sitting on the garage floor.

We openly discussed what someone in my position might do with a big block Chevy that had no home. The one comment quickly came "Hey, why don't you make a lawnmower out of it?' Thinking of my sprawling three square feet of lawn in suburbia, I instinctively replied "No, I don't think so." I recanted,"Besides, It was done already, remember the movie Moving and Neighbors?"

I felt there must be a better use for this thing. I sat quietly for the next fifteen minutes or so thinking of a time when I had the need for some excessive motive force. As these stories go, this is the part when I jumped out of my chair and said " I got it! A snow blower!" The group fell silent and the ring leader and owner of the home said " Uhh, ...what?" I said "A snow blower, think about it, you could have eight cylinders that will easily fire in the cold, I could build hollow handlebars for the coolant to circulate through to keep me warm, it already has a block heater in it, a charging system and electric start...and the physical weight would be an asset when scrambling for traction and not crushing my manicured weed infested green real-estate."

No one in the group agreed or even remotely shared my view point. The negative jeering and laughing that followed got so deep into my skin, I threatened my buddy with "I am going to build one and burry that truck of yours!"

That fall I had begun to rebuild the motor build the original prototype, all the while, being very careful not to alert anyone to my latest project. (and yes, I have a very understanding wife!)

One fateful day, my close but threatened neighbor was returning some tools when he walked into the garage. The blower was not covered up as it usually was. Let me just say that the look on his face was worth every long hour spent building this thing. The best word that I could conjure up to describe his reaction would be hysterical.

After being called a 'sick little monkey, Mr. Griswald, Tim The Tool dude' and a host of other unheard of comments, I really felt somewhat vindicated. At this point however, the project took on a more serious note. All too often, I was eliminating problems that had plagued me for years with traditional blowers. Let's just say it is a "me" thing shall we?

Sometimes you start down a road where there is no destination. This is one of those long roads. Six years from the humble beginning, this unit has undergone continual upgrades and revisions and insurmountable frustration. I am blessed to have an extremely supportive family and friends. It is through their persuasion that I have continued my tenacity and have been able to arrive at the current level of tangibility. This was not about getting on T.V. or my fifteen minutes of fame, but to prove to myself and my neighbor that I could do it, and that it would be reliable and fun.