BILLINGS, Mont. — The old “Bombers” aren’t so old anymore.

The aged, yellow and red Bombardier snow coaches — the first machines to carry winter visitors into Yellowstone National Park — are now greener under the hood.

“They’re the cleanest and next to the quietest operating snow coaches in Yellowstone,” said Scott Carsley of Yellowstone Alpen Guides in West Yellowstone.

Under a Park Service rule published this year, snow coaches will have to meet best-available-technology requirements for noise and emissions by 2011. Concessionaires are modifying their fleets to meet the standards even though the rule was never implemented because of a lawsuit.

Yellowstone Alpen Guides only runs Bombers — which have skis on the front and tank-like tracks in the back — to carry its clientele into Yellowstone. Hatches on the top of the coaches allow visitors to poke their heads out for photos or better viewing of wildlife such as buffalo that may be too dangerous to view from outside the vehicles.

Five in Alpen Guides’ eight-coach fleet have been updated with Chevy 5.3 liter Vortec engines, in addition to other interior work to dampen sound and dispel exhaust. The cost is about $20,000 per machine, Carsley said.

Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which operates a snow coach shuttle service into the park at Mammoth, is also upgrading its yellow fleet of 19 Bombers built in the 1960s and ’70s with new engines, electronic fuel injection and catalytic converters.

“We feel the Bombers are part of the history of Yellowstone,” said Todd Scott, director of support services and activities for Xanterra at Mammoth. “We feel they belong here in Yellowstone.”

The Bombardiers were the first snow coaches to be granted a permit for access to the park in winter after Harold Young and Bill Nicholls began offering winter tours in 1955. Carsley said he has traced the pedigree of two of his machines back to the 1953 rigs first used in the park.

The machines were built in Canada based on designs created by J. Armand Bombardier in 1936. Different designs offered differing carrying capacities, from 12 to 18 passengers. In Canada, the vehicles were used for delivering mail, as school buses and to make milk deliveries. The last coaches were built in 1981.

They made their movie debut in 1953’s “How to Marry a Millionaire” starring Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall. A fur-hatted Rory Calhoun took Grable for a ride in one of the Bombers.

“We believe they are the way to go,” Carsley said. “They’re made to travel on the snow. You can ride in a van anywhere.”

“In certain snow conditions, they’re the best thing, especially for running to the South Entrance where there is deeper snow conditions,” Scott said. “They’re a lighter vehicle designed for oversnow travel.”

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