![]() "When I was in high school, I always wanted a 1957 Corvette and a mahogany runabout. "Imagine owning a classic Jaguar XK-120 roadster, but with all the reliability of modern systems? That's what this market is all about: taking the best of the past and combining it with the best of modern technology."įor Dave Harrison of Las Vegas, NV, a classic runabout has long been a dream. "It's only been in the past few years where buyers have demanded - and builders have responded with - truly modern classic runabouts," says Phil Glasgow, a collector of vintage runabouts. Those who inched close enough to the Packard sitting at the Florida dock were startled to find that what seemed to be a perfectly restored but decades-old runabout was actually fiberglass! If they had looked under the engine cover, they would have found a thoroughly modern machine: a marine V-8 with electronic fuel injection and all the reliability you'd expect from a luxury car. For many people, just the sight of a vintage runabout brings a flood of memories: summer vacations on a lake or river the cool spray from the bow wave the warmth of varnished mahogany under your arm.īut, unless you were so wealthy that you had a boatman to maintain your fleet, a wooden runabout would also bring back memories of sanding and varnishing for hours, of struggling with a heavy iron engine intended for a truck, and of having to spend your winters worrying about dry rot, wood worms, and dozens of other nautical dreads. Think back seven decades to the Roaring Twenties - a Gatsby-esque time filled with jazz, flappers, bathtub gin and those wonderful wooden runabouts. But they are also demanding that these boats be built with the very latest materials and technologies. Modern boat buyers, faced with legions of look-alike plastic boats that seem to be stamped out by cookie cutters rather than boat builders, are staging a quiet rebellion they are buying boats that harken back to a gentler time. That incident - and others like it across the country - are just the tip of a boating trend. ![]() But, when the owner and his lady motored away, the crowd watched quietly in awe. When the engine was started, it was a mild burble compared to the thunder of the sportboats. Where the hot sportboats were rakish and sweptback with droopy Euro-styling, the Packard had an upright windshield, a crisp sheer line, and a straight no-nonsense bow. The other sportboats were unlike the Packard in every way, except that they were all floating in the same water. It was, pure and simple, a modern classic. What was the fascination for this vintage "gentleman's runabout?" The 26-foot Packard speedboat could barely reach half the speed of most of the sportboats, and yet it was clearly the queen of the dock. If you had taken the time to push through the crowd, you would have found them ooohing and aaahing about a boat that seemed a throwback to another era. Was it a new triple-engined Fountain? A hot Cigarette with a fifty grand paint job? A Baja with a bevy of thong-bikinied babes? This Sunday was no different, except that the usual throng of onlookers had gathered around a single boat at one end of the dock. With throaty engines, brilliant graphics, and speeds beyond the century mark, it was always a boatshow of expensive and exotic water toys. The Florida waterfront bistro had built a reputation for attracting boat owners who would raft their high performance sportboats up to the docks for the Sunday champagne brunch.
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