Proving Magnets Aren’t Just For Refrigerators
Words and Photos : Brandon Bunch
It’s not often you come across a product that makes you think, “Why hasn’t someone thought of this sooner?!” but that’s exactly what I thought when we came across Magna Cool and their line-up of both soft side and hard side coolers. Looking like a pretty standard soft side cooler, our 12-can Magna Cool is constructed of Ripstop polyester with a seam-welded inner liner that’s guaranteed not to leak. With 12 twelve-ounce cans of refreshing liquid loaded up inside, the cooler will swallow a little less than a small bag of ice to keep those cans nice and cold for three days utilizing the one-inch thick high-density foam insulation.
As a standard cooler, this Magna Cool cooler works as expected. The zippers seem like they will hold up to repeated hard and dirty use, the Ripstop has lived up to its name after a high-speed tumble across the dirt. The cooler is insulated enough to keep beverages cold for at least several hours of riding even as the temps hover above 100 degrees and climb much higher over the bed of our X3 where the cooler sits. But the feature that makes this cooler stand out above the rest is hidden in the name, and the cooler’s bottom. Under the base layer of insulation resides a plastic plate with two 115 lb pull magnets that stick the cooler to any steel surface like glue.
Obviously most UTV bodies are plastic, rendering those powerful magnets powerless, but the cooler is available with a steel plate that is ready to be bolted to a mounting surface of your choice. We bolted ours to the center of the bed on our Can-Am Maverick X3, probably the worst place for it, and put the cooler to the ultimate strength test. Lap after lap on our brutal little whooped-out figure-eight track, the Magna Cool stayed stuck to the steel plate until it finally had slid back enough for the magnets to begin losing contact with the plate. At this point, you can queue up 2 Fast 2 Furious, and it was “Ejecto seato cuz!”.
Although the cooler eventually did eject itself off its mounting plate, I’m still hugely impressed with how long it held on in this worst-case scenario. It also held up to the fall with no damage besides being a bit dirtier than before, and thankfully kept the 16-ounce energy drink cans from exploding in the process. With a normal day of riding, the cooler would have no problem staying put, especially if mounted in a less vulnerable area. The soft side Magna Cool is available in 12, 24, 36, and 48 can sizes, with the magnet count increasing with each size jump to account for the increased weight. The Magna Cool 12-can Ripstop Cooler is available for $159.99, and you can find them at magnacool.com.