Logan Manufacturing Company was a US manufacturer of
snowcat
A snowcat (short for snow and caterpillar) is an enclosed-cab, truck-sized, fully tracked vehicle designed to move on snow. Major manufacturers are Pisten Bully (Germany), Prinoth (Italy) and Tucker (United States).
Snow groomers
A snow ...
s that ceased operation in 2000. LMC is both the tradename (brand name) and an acronym.
The company's earliest history started with a prototype tracked snow vehicle built in 1948 by engineers Roy France and Emmett Devine, of the Utah Scientific Foundation at
Utah State University
Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public land-grant research university in Logan, Utah. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. With nearly 20,000 students living on or near campus, USU is Utah's ...
in Logan, Utah. After building a few more prototypes, series production began in 1950 under the Frandee Sno-Shu brand. In 1961, Utah Scientific Foundation sold the snow vehicle business to the
Thiokol
Thiokol (variously Thiokol Chemical Corporation(/Company), Morton Thiokol Inc., Cordant Technologies Inc., Thiokol Propulsion, AIC Group, ATK Thiokol, ATK Launch Systems Group; finally Orbital ATK before becoming part of Northrop Grumman) was an ...
Corporation, with the Frandee Sno-Shu name being retired in favor of the Thiokol brand on the company's products.
Manufacturing moved out of a workshop on the Utah State University campus to a new facility in Logan.
During the mid 1970s, Thiokol adopted a new strategy of divesting ancillary businesses in order to focus on its core rocket and missile operations, and the snow cat business division was earmarked for sale.
In 1978,
John DeLorean
John Zachary DeLorean (January 6, 1925 – March 19, 2005) was an American engineer, inventor, and executive in the U.S. automobile industry, widely known for his work at General Motors and as founder of the DeLorean Motor Company.
DeLorean mana ...
arranged to borrow $8.5 million from
Lotus Cars
Lotus Cars Limited is a British automotive company headquartered in Norfolk, England which manufactures sports cars and racing cars noted for their light weight and fine handling characteristics.
Lotus was previously involved in Formula One r ...
founder
Colin Chapman
Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman (19 May 1928 – 16 December 1982) was an English design engineer, inventor, and builder in the automotive industry, and founder of Lotus Cars.
In 1952 he founded the sports car company Lotus Cars. Chapman ...
, paid through a holding company in Panama owned by the two men, called General Products Development Services Inc., and used it to acquire the Thiokol snowcat division. Following the sale, the business was reorganized as DeLorean Manufacturing Company, using the DMC brand on its products. Under DeLorean, DMC diversified into the production of airport tugs in the early 1980s, and also began contract manufacturing of metal components for home exercise machines.
In the fall of 1982, several senior managers of DeLorean Manufacturing, with financing from
Citibank
Citibank, N. A. (N. A. stands for " National Association") is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City ...
, offered to buy the company off of John DeLorean for $19 million, but were rebuffed.
After John DeLorean's more famous business,
DeLorean Motor Company
The DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) was an American automobile manufacturer formed by automobile industry executive John DeLorean in 1975. It is remembered for the one model it produced—the stainless steel DeLorean sports car featuring gull- ...
, collapsed in bankruptcy in late 1982, DeLorean Manufacturing was renamed Logan Manufacturing Company, doing business under the LMC brand, in an effort to distance it from DeLorean himself and his other troubles.
Both DMC and LMC snowcats were available in numerous models and were available for use grooming ski-slopes, transporting work crews, and for
snowmobile
A snowmobile, also known as a Ski-Doo, snowmachine, sled, motor sled, motor sledge, skimobile, or snow scooter, is a motorized vehicle designed for winter travel and recreation on snow. It is designed to be operated on snow and ice and does not ...
snow grooming
Snow grooming is the process of manipulating snow for recreational uses with a tractor, snowmobile, piste caterpillar, truck or snowcat towing specialized equipment. The process is used to maintain ski hills, cross-country ski trails and snowmob ...
. Many are still in commercial use today. Popular production snowcats manufactured by Thiokol were carried over almost through DMC and LMC's product lines and the IMP, Super IMP and Spryte models are still in use today and often favored by private snowcat owners for back country transportation uses.
Other brands that competed with DMC and LMC included the Tucker
Sno-Cat
The Tucker Sno-Cat is a family of tracked vehicles for snow conditions, manufactured in Medford, Oregon by the company of the same name.
Different models have been used for expeditions in the Arctic and the Antarctic during the second half of ...
and
Bombardier snowcats. DeLorean sold his shares to an investment group in 1993, by that time several snowcat brands had ceased operation due to market factors, among them the
Snow Trac The Snow Trac is a small personal Snowcat that is roughly the size of a modern compact car.
Origins and description
In 1954, Lars Larsson, the chief design engineer for a Swedish farm equipment company, AB Westeråsmaskiner, decided to develop a t ...
and Kristi.
The final settlement of the DeLorean Motor Company bankruptcy case in 1987, which also involved John DeLorean's personal bankruptcy, left Mr. DeLorean in full control of Logan Manufacturing, as his largest remaining asset, then valued by the courts at around $28 million.
In January of 1993, John DeLorean closed on the sale of Logan Manufacturing to an investment consortium headed by New York businessman Paul Wallace and former Senator
John V. Tunney of California, at a price of around $13 million. At that time, LMC was reporting annual sales of $20 million, and had 200 employees operating out of a 100,000 square foot facility on 20 acres, with an annual payroll of $4 million.
However, after several years of financial difficulties during the 1990s, Logan Manufacturing Company filed for bankruptcy in April of 2000, and ceased operations. The company's spare parts inventories, blueprints, and intellectual property was purchased by Peterson Equipment Company, a new and used snowcat dealership and repair shop, based in
Hyde Park, Utah
Hyde Park is a city in north-central Cache County, Utah, United States. The population was 3,833 at the 2010 census, with an estimated population of 4,700 in 2018. It is included in the Logan, Utah-Idaho Metropolitan Statistical Area.
History
...
.
References
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See also
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The Shining (film)
''The Shining'' is a 1980 psychological horror film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick and co-written with novelist Diane Johnson. The film is based on Stephen King's 1977 novel of the same name and stars Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall ...
Stanley Kubrick movie featuring a Snow Trac & Thiokol Imp
Construction equipment manufacturers of the United States
Tracked vehicles
Snowmobile manufacturers
de:Snow-Trac