Awesome. Wide World of Sports ... Lake Washington, 50's thru the 70's ... unlimited hydroplane racing. Hell yeah on topic !! Think even Clark Gable chased the hobby. Kent, Washington has a hydroplane museum that is a must see if ever reasonably close. I fell off the tip of Texas once, and had a great visit with mouth agape.
Thanks Ryan! My Uncles raced outboards. When I was a youngster back in the fifties we followed them on the summer race circuit. It was a lot of fun. The racers were defiantly Hot Rodders. Many of these speed freaks were also into Hot Rods and Motorcycles.
The Slo-Mo-Shun IV hangs in the lobby of the fabulous Museum of History and Industry on South Union Lake in Seattle. It took a real man to ride that beast!!! TEB
One of my favorite hydroplanes. Two blown hemis against the Allison/Merlin regulars. They used to race on lake Okanagan back in the day.
WOW !!! I know where a few of those are !! In action pics' are so much better then eyeballing their now static postures. Miss Madision, Budweiser and Slow Mo-Shuns (unknown which version) from previous post ... Kent Museum. Keep posting !
Let's see..........we have a 9 yr old thread (with activity within the past hour) about "vintage mini-bikes" with lawnmower engines and the question of O.T. comes up about boats that were hand built with the best hot rodding techniques available. "Definitely NOT off topic".
OFFTOPIC???? BWAAHAAHAAAHAAHAAHA These were the baddest of the bad in the day. I rember my Dad getting me outta bed in the late 60's because Miss Bardhal was in the grocery store parking lot. That and a Thrifty ice cream cone made me feel real special for a long time.
Thought I would add to this one. I live on a small dead end road North East of Vancouver, Washington. Imagine my surprise when, about a month ago, a pickup drives by the House with a trailer and Hydro on the back. Not just any Hydro, either. It was the Lauterbach hulled Miss Wahoo.....The one before the Unlimited version. Still trying to track down where it went, but I`ll be posting pics when I do. As an aside--The first real Hydroplane I ever saw in New Zealand was Peter Knight`s original Air New Zealand at Lake Rotoiti in the `70`s..
Two things,, I watch that stupid show Salvage Dogs and in one show they come across a small hydro that would of had an outboard, it was just like the ones I remember seeing in South Dakota as kid, lots of lakes in SD Modern times,, up at El Mirage George Calloway has an old large hydro sitting tilted on its trailer for over 20 years, it also has the cabover 63 Ford truck hooked to the trailer,,, I'll have to get some pics
A lot of great memories upon seeing this entry, thanks Ryan. I grew up in Seattle in the 50s to 60s and was fortunate to see many hydroplanes at Lake Washington and the smaller Limiteds at Green Lake during that time. Those fellows were innovators and very proud of what they built. Not only did those boats run fast, but they looked great doing it. Thanks again.
Ready for any correction... but I think that's a Hispano-Suiza motor. A huge one I may add. "Hisso'" style .... WWI war surplus transplant at it's finest.
I believe I'm the last remaining crewmember of the '73 Miss Budweiser. Was also on the '74 & '75 Pay n Pak. Great fun and met several "pit tootsies" along the way. Still have lots of artifacts from that era but some of those pics I've never seen...Thanks
Great thread. We used to live in Wolfeboro, NH on the big lake, Winnipesaukee. Every other year they have a nostalgia boat meet. They turn the docks into pit area complete with cranes and use Wolfeboro Bay for controlled heats. Jersey skiffs (lapstrake boats with SBCs), unlimited hydros, and my favorites, the small hydros with v-8 60s and other period motors. All that mahogany and speed equipment is a sight. And talk about hot rods, the work on those Merc outboards, scavenger exhausts, crank case stuffers, carbs, injection, what a smorgasbord for a gear head.
5In the summers when I was still in high school (graduated in 1957), I worked for Henry Kaiser at his Lake Tahoe home, helping to maintain his pleasure boats. He was a race boat fanatic and had several unlimiteds during the times I was there. Here is Henry behind the wheel of his "Scooter Too". This is the way Henry J. looked most of the time, with suit and tie and a hat, always the business man. That's me with the butch haircut. This photo was taken on his property, he had a gantry that allowed his big boats to be pulled out of the water when they were not being run. This boat was the only one on the Gold Cup circuit that I remember that used the 24-cylinder Allison V-3420 dual-crankshaft engine. The hull itself was almost an exact copy of Slo-Mo (U-27) unlimited, although it was not designed or built by Ted Jones. I can't remember where I got this photo, but this is the V-3420 (3,420 cubic inches, and supercharged). "Scooter Too" was never a very successful boat. It sank several times that I can remember and I'm not sure it ever raced anywhere other than up at Lake Tahoe. Henry gave up driving in the later 1950's, he was already getting sick, and other than funding the "Hawaii Kai", he lost interest in the Unlimited circuit. Lake Tahoe was great fun if you were an unlimited fan. There were several teams that had big homes on the lake and also had Unlimiteds. The "Breathless" (U-22) and "Breathless Too" (U-222) team were just a few homes from Kaiser's place, and owner/driver Roger Murphy and his family were fun to be around. And Bill Harrah had a place on the lake and he had several Unlimiteds. Other owners/drivers I saw all the time were Bill Stead (he lived in Reno) and Morlan Visel who owned and raced the "Hurricaine IV". "Hurricaine IV" has been restored and is owned by Ken Muscatel, out of the Seattle area. Ken has a museum of vintage Unlimiteds and other race boats. He's another old phucker (he's 76 like me) and kids me that his wife is younger than my wife, and my wife is 27 years younger than me. I remind him that if I had his money, I'd have a 19 year old wife, too... I think that Ken provided all or most of the Unlimiteds used in the movie "Madison", and drove some of the boats too.
The Jalopy Journal
