Vintage News

Great Southern Vintage Show

by Scott Wakefield

The Great Southern Minnesota Swap Meet and Vintage Show was held Oct. 2nd in beautiful downtown Kasson, Minnesota at the Kasson Fairgrounds. It was a quintessential, early fall day with lots of sunshine and nice warm temperatures, and with an excellent display of vintage snowmobiles for all to enjoy. This event, put on by the dedicated volunteers of the Kasson Mantorville Snowdrifters and the Byron Snow Bears, is a recreation to some extent of what these clubs have done in the past, without any of the racing aspect of it.

Besides the welder who was welding the new Kasson water tower next door, it was relatively quiet, and the setting was wonderful and laid out very well. There was a clearly marked vintage sled

Massey Ferguson represented well.

See, football and snowmobiling go together well. A nice pair of Yamaha SRX’s—a 440 and 340.

area and swap, vendors selling everything from cell phone services to new snowmobile gear, and plenty of food vendors to boot.

Notwithstanding the expansive display of swap sleds and snowmobile related items, the vintage display did really stand out. Some sleds to note, were a Polaris Starfire with former Polaris race director Bob Eastman’s signature on it; a surprisingly good group of triple cylinder sleds; the rare Arctic Cat VIP; multiple Scorpions; a nice Brut; a nice selection of Yamaha sleds including a pair of 1976 Yamaha SRXs, a 440 and a 340, which was a nice change to see; and a 1975 Snow Jet Thunder Jet. And what would a good southern Minnesota farm country vintage show be without a trifecta of Massey Ferguson sleds, including an excellent 1972 500SST.

In its first incarnation of what it was previously, the Snowdrifters and the Snow Bears have the start of something really good going here.

An immaculate Arctic Cat Panther. Sno Jet Thunder Jet.

A nice ‘Kawi.’