Hoser,
Yes, you have found one of the FL-250's "parents". The other parent is the
ATC 90 shown on your webpage, originally known as the US 90. The UL-175 was
at least the second snowmobile attempt by Honda. The first one in the early
70s was a front-engined, 750cc four cylinder, 4 stroke from their street
bike. Lots of power, but so heavy it sank in the snow. So, they did a 180
and designed a very lightweight, quick-handling, sport snowmobile.
The Whitefox was a rear-engined, 175cc single cylinder, 2 stroke. The engine
was shrouded, fan-cooled and mounted horizontally with the cylinder facing
the rear. The intake port was on the top side with the carb facing the
front, and the exhaust port on the bottom side with the muffler at the rear.
It used centrifugal clutches and a gearbox much like the FL-250 but with
double tracks to drive.
The body consisted of a plastic seat/ foot pan and a 1-piece louvered engine
cover. The headlight was mounted on the front frame rail (I used one to
mount on the roll bar of my first FL-250, before they came that way) and the
taillight was off an XL-250. The headlight switch was on top of the light,
not real handy unless you could turn it on with your feet! The body color
was a mixture of orange, silver and black. The controls were very FL-like,
with a brake on one side and throttle on the other side of the steering
handles.
I guess the snowmobile market in '73/'74 wasn't strong enough to justify full
production, so the UL-175 just kind of died until it was resurrected for the
dirt a few years later. Some of the UL-175 parts remained in Honda stock
until the early '90s.
Hope this fills in some info for you,
SNUE
If you have any information drop me a email pilot400@mchsi.com