Too cheap to pay for a trailer, this man strapped a snowmobile to the top of his Chevy Malibu and drove through Wisconsin

In what might have been the most Wisconsin thing to pop up on Facebook last week, photos and video of someone driving through the state with a snowmobile strapped to the roof of a car created a bit of a stir.

Turns out it was a guy from Illinois who was too cheap to get a trailer and pay for the extra gas to tow his snowmobile up north.

"I only burned $10 more in gas on a 430-mile trip," said Tommy Mecher, an electrician apprentice from Chicago. "I put it on the roof in Lemont, Illinois, where the snowmobile was and drove it up to Bessemer, Michigan."

Snowmobile enthusiasts will tell you it's not the cheapest pastime.

There's the expensive machine, helmet and cold-weather clothing, the cost to travel to a spot with enough snow and the expenses of a weekend of roaring across groomed trails. But Mecher purchased the 1990 Polaris Indy 500 snowmobile a few weeks ago, made a few minor repairs to get it running and left for his dad's house in Bessemer last Friday.

He did not have a snowmobile trailer but admitted in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon that he probably wouldn't have used one anyway.

"Just for myself and one snowmobile I thought this was a superior way of doing it," Mecher said.

Among the comments on a Facebook page for snowmobile enthusiasts:

"This is hilarious!"

"Someone that doesn't have a buddy with a trailer obviously."

"If there is a will, there is a way. I'd be proud to help him unload it!"

"Drive on, drive off?"

Several people chimed in with locations he was seen, ranging from Oak Creek to Allenton to Lomira.

It took about an hour to load it on the roof of his 2005 Chevy Malibu, using an old blue Ford tractor with a bucket. He modified the end of the snowmobile to keep the machine's track from caving in the roof or breaking the rear window.

Mecher made a support rack of boards to shift the snowmobile's weight to the sides of the roof, away from the middle. He secured his sled with several straps that he looped through the open rear doors before tightening them and closing the doors.

"I even had a friend get on the snowmobile and try to rock it and it didn't move at all," Mecher said. "I could have gotten into an accident and that snowmobile wasn't coming off."

Mecher noticed he got quite a few stares from fellow motorists. When he stopped, he got questions about the legality of transporting a snowmobile on top of a car.

"But a lot of cops saw it and they didn't say anything. I saw a cop at a gas station and he said ‘I don't see anything illegal about it,’ ” Mecher said.

When he arrived in Bessemer, it took just nine minutes to remove the snowmobile from its lofty perch with a front end loader and a strap.

Mecher has been snowmobiling for six years, loving the feeling of freedom and speed, and traveling through beautiful snow-covered woods and trails. He likes to drive his snowmobile in Michigan's Upper Peninsula where lake effect snow from Lake Superior creates plenty of snow.

He spent all day Saturday and Sunday and part of Monday snowmobiling before traveling back to Chicago to return to work. Mecher didn't get any strange looks on his return trip — he left his snowmobile in Michigan.