The earliest Evinrude with a gearshift was the 1950 fourteen horsepower Fasten. It was a souped up ’49 twelve horse Elto powerhead on a ’49 Johnson lower unit. A rush job to blunt the sales of Mercury’s Super ten.
I still have my 1955 Evinrude Big Twin. There was a service bulletin in late 1955 saying to enlarge the quarter inch drain hole in the lower front motor cove (under the carburetor) to an inch and a half. The original super quiet "Aquaponic" design was to restrictive, cutting back on the horse power, . . 😀
