What's this?

[LakeRacer99]

Anyone ever seen one of these? I have lived in the midwest all my life and never seen one. They sort of resemble the Talon styling with the windshied. I think they were built by Road Marine Corporation in Scottsbluff Nebraska. This was in 1973.

[KG4]

I remember seeing an ad for tunnelflite.I will try to find it.Nice looking boat.

[airide18]

Looks sweet !!!!

[72EbkoStinger]

Here I am again, getting in 3 years after a thread died.....but I just had to add something.

You are right about the Road Marine boats. The company set up shop on the campus of the recently defunct (recent, as in back then) "Hiram Scott College" in Scottsbluff Nebraska in about 73-74. They built the boats in a red metal building that was previously called "The Tub", which was formerly the student union, I believe.

I remember when Road Marine got their BIA Certification. It was big news in the Scottsbluff paper. Promises of big production and jobs had everyone excited.

They didn't last long. I don't know how many boats they made but they made a 21 (or was it 23?) footer and a 17 foot tunnel boat like the one you have pictured. I never saw anything but outboards but I heard there was an I/O either in the works or prototyped. Don't know about that. Construction was OK but seemed a bit flimsy. They looked good, though.

All where white with a metalflake stripe. I remember seeing green, red, blue and gold stripes. The company folded almost as soon as they got the certification if my memory serves me correct and had a auction to sell off all the remaining boats, molds and equipment. Lake Minatare had 4 or 5 of them running around after the auction for several summers. They went cheap and the people that bought them couldn't afford new motors so there were these cool looking tunnel boats running around with 20 year old Evinrudes and Scott-Attwater motors on them. My brothers and I (in our early teens) thought it was sacrilegious to power them with old motors! Guess we didn't understand economics very well. We could out run all of them with our Stinger....so we were happy.

They seemed to be very prone to cavitation....as was our Ebko Stinger but a cupped prop did wonders for that problem.

The real bizzare thing was I saw a red and white Road Marine sitting at a boat repair shop here in the Dallas area just a couple years ago. I thought I might be the only one in the entire DFW area that knew where it came from at the time.

Guess they are still out there somewhere!

Hope someone finds this useful (as well as fairly accurate)

Dave

[LakeRacer99]

Dave thanks for the info. It is always appreciated.
I think there is a member here that runs a yellow one now.

Very cool looking boats

[fijjity]

Thought I would bump this up as there are a couple out there still lurking.

[150aintenuff]

het fijjity what you got yours up to so far??

[fijjity]

68 or 72 so far. She is very heavy and the bottom is very saturated. I am putting a new floor in it by the 4th. I am sure that will lighten it up about 500 lbs. I don't want to gain speed, just stability and handling.

[72EbkoStinger]

I remember seeing the 21' I/Os on Lake Minatare outside of Scottsbluff in the 70s. When Road Marine went under, they had a big auction and sold off all the remaining boats, molds, etc. Since the boats went cheap, some of them ended up in the hands of people that couldn't really afford and shiny new "Tower of Power" or the like. So, a lot of them where rigged with mid to late 60s Evinrudes, Johnsons and I saw one with a Scott!

They had a terrible cavitation problem as I recall. My Stinger did too. Then, I read about cupped props, talked Dad into getting a Mercury Quicksilver 13X20 2 blade bronze prop that we special ordered from Clemen's Marine in Scottsbluff. That solved the cavitation problems and I told all the Road Marine guys as well. I should have been on commission. I think I sold a bunch of cupped props.

...just some more basically useless drivel.

[72EbkoStinger]

fijjity, you see this?

Dave

http://kpr.craigslist.org/boa/833116516.html

[fijjity]

Mine was originally registered in WA state
We bought it off ebay 5 or so years ago in Idaho.
That yellow one is sweet. Got me thinkin

[fijjity]

I have a copy
You had a settlement a long time ago and declined it before the court date.
But anyhow, I think you should play somehwere else for a while like maybe in your own thread