Polaris Research and Development Center, Minnesota

This is the research and development center for Polaris, and it includes extensive test tracks and a microcosm of extreme vehicular terrain. Polaris is one of the largest snowmobile and all-terrain vehicle manufacturers in the nation, and its origins, and corporate headquarters, are in Minnesota. While some of its production is in Mexico, much of it remains at a half dozen or so plants in the USA, mostly in the Midwest. The company was founded as a snowmobile company in the northern Minnesota town of Roseau, ten miles south of the Canadian border, and the company still operates one of its largest production plants there. Polaris helped develop a new class of rugged four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles, used by off-road recreationists, but also, in modified forms, by the military, for whom the company has a special production division.