The boat seen in the illustrations above is not a product of Boston Whaler. It is also not some sort of adaptation of a Boston Whaler boat, as the hull design is unlike anything produced by Boston Whaler.
The boat looks like something designed by Harley Earl, the iconic automobile stylist who was head of General Motors design for decades and produced similarly wild designs in automobiles, such as the 1959 Cadillac or 1959 Chevrolet Impala with large fins.
Q3: where is the boat now?
I see the registration number begins MC, which indicates Michigan. That seems appropriate for the boat’s automotive style and branding as a “Cadillac.” In the 1960’s there was a lot of boat building in Michigan, including the just-started Sea Ray boats, which were also offsprings of automotive people.
More indicators of no lineage to Boston Whaler:
- the boat seen in Figure 2, has the helm on the Port side. In most small boats the helm would be on the Starboard side, and was that way on Boston Whaler boats just about always, as I can recall. Putting the helm on port reflects a notion of where it would be on an automobile;
- further, there is little evidence that the boat has the Unibond hull. The essential element of being a Boston Whaler boat is the hull construction, which was unique to Boston Whaler. A Unibond hull is a double-bottom hull in which the interior space between the two hulls is filled with foam. The boat in the illustrations has no indication of being a Unibond hull.
Also, if the boat were made in 1979 then it was subject to mandatory inclusion of a federal hull identification number on the transom. That identification would positively identify the manufacturer. However, if the boat was made as a one-off or only a few hulls were made, it could have been exempt from the federal regulations that governed “boat builders.”
Another possibility is the boat was a production fiberglass boat at original manufacture and later someone with some skill in fiberglass laminate construction just grafted on the automotive style fins.