Outboard Ingenuity

By James Barrick, Blue Ridge Chapter

About eight months ago, ACBS vice president, Ed Andrews, and I had a great conversation regarding the old Chris-Craft outboard motors. He asked if I was interested in bringing a couple back to life for him. Having a passion for the outboard restoration, and being a collector, I said absolutely! 

Chris-craft outboard motors were just as classy as their big brother inboards. Their shiny polished aluminum blue and gold color scheme still turns the heads of the outboard enthusiasts and some powered the youth Chris-Craft hydroplanes the company once produced. 

The 5 and 10 hp motors were a hit in the mid 1950s. Still today, they are valued by collectors. Ed has the beautiful Chris-Craft runabout, Liquid Asset. We discussed a couple of Chris-Craft outboards that would help to dress up his shop and illustrate the incredible production history that came out of Michigan and Canada. 

The project was a success! With some outside the box thinking and creativity, we got to work. Deciding every boat shop that has a Chris certainly needs a clock, we used extra parts and that beautiful blue challenger tank. Once the clock was installed, we decaled it up. Looks perfect and keeps great time. We also decided to restore the old Phil Rite gas tank from back in the day so that it would match the motors and clock, giving more shop bling.

We liked our finished projects so much that we decided to bring the motors to the 2025 ACBS Sunnyland Antique Boat Show in Tavares, Florida to see if we could turn a few heads. That we did! We set up a tent on Friday and were happy to see that there was a lot of interest in our ingenuity!

A special thanks goes out to Vintage Outboard Paint out of Toledo, Ohio and Chute Marine of Niagara Falls, New York for the extra parts motors. 

Maybe you have old parts lying around too? Hold on to those old Chris-Craft outboards.Their legacy lives on!