History

[bgreene]

Chris Craft had a boat they named Scorpion .
Seemed same Hull as V and boats look close to same

[nymack66]

Thanks for posting, an awesome piece of history, good to know.

[jesemd]

Originally Posted by Pipe_Dream

I love my boat, but "full-sized V-berths?"

Perhaps if you spent years offshore racing, your spine is compressed enough that you would fit?

[jesemd]

This shows a Popular Science review of the Glasspar V-20. Mentions 15 foot seas during the offshore run. No thanks.

https://books.google.com/books?id=rC...20v-20&f=false

And here is an advertisement for the Glasspar V-20

https://books.google.com/books?id=RC...20v-20&f=false

By 1967-68 Glasspar was advertising a different Deep V 20 footer. I guess this is when Wellcraft swooped in bought the design.

An actual Glasspar in the wild:

[jesemd]

Advertisement featuring a beautiful yellow V from 1974.

https://books.google.com/books?id=7L...20v-20&f=false

Who remembers readers service cards?

https://books.google.com/books?id=oC...20v-20&f=false

By 1971 the Center Consoles were on the market.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Ky...20v-20&f=false

Mercury performance bulletin from 1969 (from Fiberglassics.com)

[jesemd]

Originally Posted by bgreene

Chris Craft had a boat they named Scorpion .
Seemed same Hull as V and boats look close to same

There was a guy named Mike Carrigan floating around on some forums who told many tales about the South Florida boat building industry in the 60's and 70's. If I remember correctly, Dick Genth took over Wellcraft around 1969 and expanded them from a local builder into a national brand. The first thing he did was purchase the V-20 design. The V-20 became a sales leader among all brands and when he left Wellcraft to run Chris-Craft, he wanted to recreate the magic over there. He simply copied the V-20 as close as possible to create the Scorpion. It never had sales numbers to match the Wellcraft though.