Frandee Sea Wolf

The Frandee Sea Wolf was an amphibious tracked over-snow vehicle from the group of snowmobile builders working at Utah State Agricultural College in Logan, Utah, where the Frandee SnoShu machines (named after inventor Roy France) were also developed. A 1955 master's thesis comparing the over-snow vehicles produced at the college devotes a chapter to the Sea Wolf; its illustrations show the Sea Wolf Model I being driven in water by a propeller, by tracks and propeller together, and climbing over a vertical drop.

Design

An enthusiast who found a surviving example, a model 4CX, described it in notes copied into the archive. Its cast brass maker's plate reads 'University of Utah Experimental Division, Logan Utah, Scandie Sea Wolf'. Like a Tucker Sno-Cat it ran on four track units, each pair driven through grader-like gear cases, so all eight wheels were powered; the front pair steered as on a Tucker but the rear pair was fixed. There seemed to be no track-tensioning system. The engine was missing, but the drive train used a conventional gearbox and a four-wheel-drive truck transfer case feeding two differentials.

History

According to the same account, the prototypes were built by a professor and students, probably only two or three were made, and they were shipped to Alaska for testing by the US military. The writer believed the builders may have been challenged by Tucker over patent infringement, since they quickly dropped the design in favour of a two-track model. Serial number one ended up in a scrapyard and was later crushed; a serial number 7 example appeared on eBay. The folder also contains a US patent for a vehicle with steerable endless treads.