In 1939, Thomas Poulter, a scientist from the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago, sent the Snow Cruiser to Antarctica. Poulter had previously worked as the second-in-command for Admiral Richard Byrd during his second Antarctic expedition. The Snow Cruiser, a massive vehicle weighing between 20 and 34 tonnes, was designed in just eleven weeks. It featured a single-engine Beechcraft monoplane on its roof for aerial reconnaissance. At the time, Germany had claimed a part of Antarctica called New Swabia, and there were rumors that Berlin planned to build a submarine base there. The United States wanted to assert its presence, and the third American expedition to Antarctica was being prepared. The project was approved on April 29, 1939, and construction started on August 8, with only six months to complete the design. Poulter convinced over 70 companies to provide materials, space, and equipment. The estimated cost of $150,000 was covered by the research foundation of the Armour Institute, which later loaned the vehicle to the government. The Snow Cruiser was equipped with two Cummins diesel engines that powered electric motors, three-meter diameter wheels that could retract to cross crevasses, and four-wheel steering that allowed for crab-like movement. The designers claimed it could reach 48 km/h on solid ground and had an autonomy of 8,000 kilometers. It could house four or five people for a year, with a laboratory, darkroom, and small mechanical workshop. The vehicle was 17 meters long, about the size of a double-decker bus. The Snow Cruiser began its journey on October 24, 1939, starting at the Pullman workshops near Chicago. It headed toward Boston, 1,640 kilometers away, but near Gomer, Ohio, a damaged steering sent it into a stream, where it remained for three days. In Framingham, Massachusetts, local media described the event as the worst traffic jam in the world, with more than 72,000 cars blocked by the massive vehicle. On November 15, the Snow Cruiser embarked on the North Star with the rest of Byrd's expedition. Upon arriving at Little America in Whale Bay in early 1940, the situation quickly became problematic. A wooden ramp had to be built to unload the vehicle, and a wheel passed through during the maneuver. The vehicle had never been tested on ice, as it was built during the summer and autumn in Chicago. Its smooth tires, originally designed for swamp vehicles, skidded on the ice, even with chains. Too heavy and not powerful enough, the Snow Cruiser moved slowly over the three kilometers to the base. Poulter left on January 24, 1940, still believing in his design. Although the Snow Cruiser had issues, it was not entirely useless. Scientists used the heated and insulated cabin to conduct seismic measurements, cosmic ray readings, and ice core drilling. Poulter hoped to return with improved parts. When the camp was evacuated in 1941, the vehicle was stored in a garage dug into the ice and marked with bamboo poles. In 1946, the U.S. Navy discovered the Snow Cruiser during Operation Highjump and reported it only needed air in the tires and a tune-up to be operational. In 1958, an expedition found the site thanks to the poles still sticking out of the snow. A bulldozer cleared the vehicle, buried under about seven meters of snow. Inside, everything remained as the crew had left it, with papers, magazines, and cigarette butts scattered around. The team dug down to the base of the wheels and measured the amount of snow that had accumulated since its abandonment. Then they left, and no one has returned. Little America III was located on the Ross Ice Shelf, a glacial platform that regularly loses large chunks into the sea. The site was carried away in the early 1960s. In 1963, the crew of the icebreaker USS Edisto spotted an iceberg in the Ross Sea whose cross-section revealed remnants of the camp. In a study published in 2005, researchers Ted Scambos and Clarence Novak suggested the Snow Cruiser might be on another iceberg, detached from the one crossed by the Edisto. Using maps, photos, and knowledge of glacial movement, they estimated the ice breaks since 1962 had exposed the ice front, creating a possible window for research into a sunken wreck. A rumor suggested the Soviet Union might have taken the Snow Cruiser during the Cold War, but no evidence supported this. The most likely fate remains the bottom of the Southern Ocean or a deep layer of ice. The site of Little America V, an American base built under the snow from 1957 to 1958, also disappeared into the sea in 1987, carried away by iceberg B-9.