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Interview With José Boisjoli
José Boisjoli Brings BRP into the 21st Century
By Kevin Whipps

In America, we have Henry Ford, and in Canada, they have J.-Armand Bombardier. Although most people located south of The Great White North have never heard of him, just walk through the streets of Montréal and you'll see his name plastered on everything from buses to subway cars and everything in between. Fact is, he's a bit of a legend around those parts, so much so that the person in charge of running one of his companies has a heavy responsibility on their shoulders. Today, that man is José Boisjoli, the current CEO of BRP.?

But before we get into his story, let's go back to Bombardier, the man who started it all. Although Canada is an easy area to navigate today, prior to World War II, traveling anywhere in the Eastern providence of Quebec during the winter was quite the task. What Bombardier wanted to do was build a personal motorcraft that could traverse the snowy grounds with ease, and become a one-man car for the snow. But this was no easy task; in fact, while in the middle of building one of his prototypes during the worst part of the winter, his son fell ill. With no way to transport him to the nearest hospital located miles away, he was forced to watch his son die. That drove him to complete the project quicker, that way he avoided more potential suffering in the process.?

His basic concept works like this: put skis on the front of a vehicle to steer and control the movement. Then put treads in the back to provide traction against the snow. The unique part here is that instead of running metal wheels with teeth against the treads like a tank, Bombardier used pneumatic tires just like the ones found on the average Ford at the time. But how??

From an engineering perspective, treads are incredibly difficult to work with. A metal tread has a very specific length, and needs to go around a series of wheels and gears to provide forward and rearward movement. But if the wheels flex or a suspension part moves, that could cause the length requirement of the tread to change, so a complex series of wheels and levers are used to keep the length fixed at all times. Problem is, the ride is pretty stiff, and it's nothing that someone would want to drive for long periods of time.