By Jim Barrick, Wine Country Chapter

Pictures by Ed Dominiak, Niagara Frontier & Wine Country Chapters

Who would have thought the Evinrude Elto story would begin in a rowboat, a love story where Ole Evinrude is rowing his bride, Bess, across the river for ice cream on a hot summer day. And the rest is history.

I find outboard motors, especially old Evinrude Eltos, fascinating and have started a nice little collection of them. It’s a great aspect of the vintage boating hobby to engage in. They are readily available, easy to restore, and are beautiful pieces of FUNCTIONAL art. I plan to share more images and stories from my collection this winter in hopes that it will help inspire other ACBS members to start collecting outboards as well.

Elto Cub

First, we have the famous 1938 0.5 hp Elto Cub, that had the original and shocking price of $26.50. The Cub could speed up to 5 miles per hour.

 

Orange Elto Pal

This is a very rare 1937 0.9 hp Elto Pal, which has a very odd-looking double tank. This tank you will not see on many collectors stands, as this motor was a factory test motor in which the tank was filled and ran straight thru till it was empty and then torn down and checked for piston and ring wear etc. These motors were not for sale in the market. But rumor has it that some of these made it out of the factory in the trunks of factory workers.  I checked that story with an heir of the Evinrude Company and he laughed and said he couldn’t confirm or deny.

3 Comments

  1. Thank you for submitting these wonderful pictures and stressing how outboards compliment the vintage boat hobby. I worked for years getting the AOMCI involved directly with the big Sunnyland show and now we are an important part of that event and well respected because we display quality boat and motor restorations.

    George Emmanuel
    Treasurer, AOMCI

  2. Jim,
    I have one. I thought somebody cut an original tank in half and added a center piece. Thanks for posting your article it cleared things up.
    Ron Snapper Schofield
    Bradenton, Florida

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