HARDWARE
My first thought was that my pal Mario had bought some kind of cute tank, but then he introduced me to his Argo, the amphibious all-terrain vehicle he'd picked up to plow the snow, patrol the pond, and haul lumber.
Riding Mario's Argo is gorge-rattling magic. Because it uses skid steering, the Argo corners with superb precision, squeezing between trees like a fleet-footed predator. We barreled down a hillside and splashed into the river - it was running dry, and we had to grind over wide stretches of slippery, uneven rock for half a mile before we found water deep enough to swim in. As the channels in the Argo's soft Goodyear Runamucks churned forward, scaring the trout, I felt like I was in a speedboat, but we left no greasy rainbows in our wake. Unlike a two-stroke outboard boat engine, this thing is clean.
Mario loves his Argo, but he's not thrilled about the aftermarket support. All the local Argo dealers do most of their business selling ATV trikes and snowmobiles and aren't much for tuning up his beast, which has a tendency to stall out and backfire.
Leaping back onto the road, we got some nice hang time, heightened since the Argo, because of its vehicle class, doesn't require seat belts. Mario yanked open the throttle, letting the thing crank at 22 mph. That's crawling when you're in a car, but on an ATV, it feels like you're hauling ass.
Argo 6 x 6 Vanguard: $6,000. Ontario Drive & Gear: (800) 561 9508, www.argoatv.com.
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