Reply To: What was your first outboard?

[Barry Blesi]

My first was a new ’69 4 hp. McCulloch (McCulloch having taken over the manufacturing of Scott outboards in 1956, and renaming them for a few inglorious years before throwing in the towel in the late ’60’s). Pic of a similar motor attached. It was one of the old standard designs that had an air-cooled powerhead and a water-cooled exhaust leg. I spent nearly every waking minute on the water with it in 1969 and most of 1970, and thus it was probably responsible for some slight hearing loss in the ear closest to the motor. Geez, it was loud. That motor was fine for what it was. My old man bought it instead of a Johnrude (or the Merc I wanted), because it was cheeeep. Then in late 1970, we traded for a ’69 7.5 hp McCulloch – a REAL POS. My dad and I had built a Minimax by that time, which was originally to make the 4 go faster :), but by the time it was finished, the 7.5 happened. It was on that boat for 3 WHOLE DAYS when a coil went out on it. The was the last in a series of problems, and my old man said “That’s enough”, and we traded it in on a Merc 7.5, and it was night-and-day difference in performance – and that motor never skipped a beat. Traded that one in for 1963 Merc 9.8 in the never-ending quest for speed, and that one ran like a scalded dog.
I run a Merc 250 Pro XS now – not on the Minimax, although I’ll try anything once, LOL – but my garage is full of little Mercs from ’63 to ’79 – including a really nice copy of the same ’63 ‘Nine-Eight’ that I had when I was 14, as we used to call ’em as kids. I had to relive my youth. My current fav is a ’66 Merc 60, 6 hp. (pic attached). Its little 1.5″ x 1.5″ bore and stroke just make it as quiet as can be.
You can hardly tell it’s running on the boat.