The early years

When I finally outgrew my blue “Duret Contreplaqués,” I broke my piggy-bank and purchased my first pair of Dynastar Compound RG5 in 1965 on a pro-form, picked the skis up at the factory and mounted them with a single pivot Salomon toe and a Look turntable, which probably wasn’t a very safe combination, but try to tell any seventeen year old boy about safety! I loved the skis; they held on ice like no others, were slick, fast and their only downside was that the tip was a bit too shallow and would make bump skiing a bit hazardous as it would too easily engage into a sudden change of terrain…

That same year, Les Ressorts du Nord, a steel maker, purchased the fledging brand and in addition to Marielle Goitschel signed up top level racers like Guy Périllat, both competing as amateurs, and Olympic Champion François Bonlieu who competed on the early U.S. Pro Tour. This is precisely when another ski company, Aluflex, also based in Sallanches, jumped indirectly into the picture. The company, founded in 1954 by Charles Dieupart, built one of the first metal skis using an aluminum sandwich construction (flat bottom sheet and “omega” shaped top enclosing a wood core.

That new ski design was endorsed by that time’s previously famous French champions like Émile Allais and James Couttet. Aluflex was also the official supplier to the “Chasseurs Alpins” (French Army’s mountain division.) Since Périllat was racing in both technical and speed events, Dynastar only had a slalom ski and now needed a ski for downhill and giant slalom.

Jeannot Liard, their legendary race chief, received some propitious inspiration from the Aluflex design, his previous employer, borrowed its overall design,capped a top aluminum sheet over the “omega” rib, completed it with phenol sidewalls and the MV2 was born (the name was a take on the physics formula multiplying an object’s mass by the square of its velocity.)

At the same time, the fiberglass slalom ski was revamped and renamed Compound RG10 while it received a dark blue cosmetic extending to its sidewall. That summer of 1966, the French ski team’s domination of the World Championships in Portillo sealed the notoriety of the brand and its future was further secured when Rossignol purchased the company one year later from Les Ressorts du Nord.