Pretty dang cool and very clever... of course the wide footprint is what helps keep the thing from sinking into the deep snow. One would imagine that using today's composite materials they could conceivably make one that can go on water as like flotation pontoons which still propel the vehicle using the spiral blades.
One has to wonder why this concept never really took off. Too expensive? I think that today it would be relatively cheap to build using thick fiberglass for the pontoons. A better version would definitely be built now-a-days but... gee, this looks pretty neat.
They could make smaller ones about the size of a big snowmobile... and those suckers can sink in deep snow.