Probably a whole lot more we don't really want to see hiding under that hat. Covair van in the one picture.
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Can anyone explain the Kitson Kraft and Miles connection. Seems like very few Kitson Krafts have survived.
Hells teeth Fiber-----forgotten about that funny van. Bought it from Geoff Ward, a brilliant motorcyclist in his day, he imported from the States and dismantled the engine. Got my mechanic to rebuild it [air cooled if i remember right] My son did most of his courting in the back of that thing. He ran it 'till i bought a Toyota. Wonder what happened to it.
The boat was long before the pickle fork---------2 litre Cosworth again.
Kenny could tell you the correct story. I flew back to England with Fred and he told me Kenny had a licence to build Miles Masters as he was the only one he would trust.
Let's be honest----not many tunnel boats have survived when you think how many were built and by such a wide variety of builders.
When the first full tunnel Miles (Milesmaster) hulls came over they caused quite a stir as an alternative to the Molinari/Scotti/Schultz tunnels of the time. Somehow (apparently with Miles' blessing in some cases) copies and molds were made from them that begat the Kitson, Zonker, and Scorpion versions. Kitson had previously "popped" the 18 and 21 foot Glastron-Molinari hulls so he was established, but I believe that Zonker and Scorpion came about strictly based on the Miles boats. Of the three, Kitson was the only one to continue the process by copying the later picklefork version which made a great SJ boat.....but IMHO...a downright dangerous Mod U or S hull due to the abrupt chine line forward and the massive lope with a high rake speedmaster cleaver. I am told that an older generation low rake Rolla two blade cured this but my hull did not come with one of those and Gary G neglected to add this little tidbit when foisting one of these things off on me. In any event Kenny Kitson mass produced the copies and claims to have built an amazing number of them (something like 2 or 3 a week for a period of time). Where they went.... is the question of the day.
John - Is that a current photo?
Kind of a cool OMC promo. The calculator to figure lap times/speeds is a interesting gimick. Currently on ebay - http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Johnson-...item335d7271d8
Great pity there's no factory competition any more. Honda have there own series [closed to anything other than Honda] and Mercury still Have the 2 separate series. [ Champ in the states, and F1 in the rest of the world.] I guess the factories have done all the developing they are going to do and don't feel the need to compete. Wonder what it would take to start a war------------myself-----i think they are sh-t scared of each other. !!!!!!!!!!!
O.K. Johnno, Elucidate-----and let's see where it leads to.
I don't follow who's got what in the marketplace these days, but I've never known Merc to be scared of anything. They are the ones that have persevered, even expanded while others failed. Seems they have the market share they went looking for and probably see no reason to spend an Obama pittance, but a sh-tload of money to the rest of the world, to take on Goliath just to claim some unnecessary bragging right.
Just my thoughts on the question.
Some Mercury Muscle from "Back in the day" :D
Have you been holding out on us, or were you testing to see if I'd notice
http://www.screamandfly.com/attachme...2&d=1257954312