In 1971, So*Jet engineer Duane Aho was given the job of building the Thunder Jet. You can read the whole Thunder Jet history of them on Blake Read's Sno*Jet web site. There was just 100 of them produced, all with Yamaha 440 motors in them. Today, very few still exist, and they very most definitely are some of the rarest sleds around.

Amongst the first 25 built were two very special sleds given to Auto racing super stars Al and Bobby Unser. Mostly used for promotional pictures, it was a good shot in the arm for Sno*Jet's racing department to have such notable characters on your sleds. How or why the sleds "got away" from the Unsers is unknown as of this writing.

One of the original VSCA guys, Bob Martin of Michigan got one of the sleds - the number 1 sled of Al Unser. When Bob decided to cut some sleds loose out of his astounding collection (at the time) none other then superstar collector Jerry McGee was right there with a rented Ryder truck to make several trips back to his home in New Hampshire with his new treasure - including the Unser Thunderjet.

Jerry had been collecting parts and getting ready to restore the sled for several years, when other projects "got in the way". So Jerry let the sled go to Bob Weaver in New York.

Today, Bob is having them restored by Jeff Brauer. I first got to know Jeff about six years ago, when he was just 16 and looking to get into the hobby. He emailed me at about the time I started vintagesleds.com looking for advice on how to get a career in vintage sledding. Now 21 and having received a degree in Machine Tool Technology, he is restoring sleds for Bob Weaver; I must have told him something that helped!

Jeff was nice enough to send in some progress shots of the sled, and will keep us updated as he goes along.