From the Home of Elk Antlers, it’s the CallAir Snowcar

Afton, Wyoming is known best for, says Wikipedia, the world’s largest arch made of elk antlers. “Spanning 75 feet across the four lanes of U.S. Highway 89, the arch consists of 3,011 elk antlers and weighs 15 tons.”

Yes, well. Enough about Elk antlers, and more about Reuel Thomas Call and his 1948 CallAir YC4-2 Snowcar, which will be auctioned off on October 18th at Mecum Auctions Las Vegas.

Call was an Afton native, born in 1908. He grew up with an entrepreneurial bent, and when he was 20, Call opened a two-pump gas station, funded by money earned from his previous venture—renting out roller skates to Afton townspeople.

Call soon opened another station, then another, pyramiding to nearly 400 Maverik gas stations and convenience stores in 14 mostly Western states. The chain was acquired by Flying J, the truck stop company; Flying J was founded by O. Jay Call, the nephew of Reuel Call.

Both men, now deceased, had a keen interest in aviation. O. Jay’s name for his Flying J company came from his love of aviation, which ultimately cost him his life. In 2003, he was killed when a Cessna Citation jet he was piloting crashed in Idaho. Reuel nearly outlived his nephew: He died in 2002, at age 94.

In the 1930s, his service station business well-established and growing, Reuel Call was reportedly bored. He wanted to venture into aviation, and in 1939, Call Aircraft Factory was established in his hometown of Afton. The company’s first airplanes were manufactured in 1940 and were churned out in small numbers for the next 30 years. Many of them were crop dusters, or agricultural spray planes.

Afton, Wyoming, home to a little more than 2000 residents, gets more than its share of snow most years, which created an opportunity for Call Aircraft Factory. What if they designed a snow-traveling vehicle with airplane characteristics?

It wouldn’t fly, of course, but it would be powered by an aircraft engine, driving a rear-facing “pusher” propeller. Thus was born the CallAir YC4-2 Snowcar like the one offered in the Mecum auction. Skis would replace tires, steered with a conventional car-like steering wheel. The configuration was a two-person tandem setup. Turning a wooden three-blade propeller was the 75-horsepower Continental C75, a 188-cubic inch flat-four built from 1943 to 1952 used in multiple ERCO Ercoupe airplane models.

This particular Snowcar is a 1948 model, originally built for the U.S. Postal Service, used in routes “which relayed airmail back and forth between towns both in and out of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks,” Mecum says. “Later it was acquired by the Wyoming Fish and Game developments in the Grand Teton and Wind River districts.” Still later it was sold as surplus, and in the mid-1970s it was re-acquired by the Call family “and underwent a three-year historical restoration.” It comes with a specially-built two-wheel open trailer.

Odd ducks like this are difficult to price, but one was offered a couple of years ago for $80,000, and that might be a good guess for this one. (Body style? “Snowcar,” Mecum says; apparently they have a category for everything.) It’s offered at no reserve.

Want to see a CallAir Snowcar? Just detour to Afton the next time you’re in the neighborhood and visit the CallAir Museum, which displays a SnowCar, multiple CallAir airplanes, and legends that include tales of the people involved in the company, like Barton Call, “a test pilot trained in the war. He used airplanes to hunt coyotes and measure snow. He sometimes took off from the parking lot. He would fly over the landing field, cut his engine and holler down to the people below.”

Wonder what he was hollering? Perhaps “Hey, Reuel! Maybe we should stick to airplanes!”

For more on CallAir, visit the brand’s dedicated Facebook page here.