Re: 1963 Century-coronado
 

Iknow of a few of these rotting away locally.. I know where theres a hardtop hanging in a boathouse that can be had for 5K .. Also I believe they are oak frame, mahogany plank.
Great boats, next door neighbor had a hardtop, V8 dual quad motor that he wanted to GIVE me when he moved..but having grown up maintaining my dads 1948 Chris Craft I wanted nothing to do with it.. :drink:

Re: 1963 Century-coronado
 

Thanks for all the replys. There is a bidding war on this particular boat between 3 people. I think the owner will probably get way more than they ever expected Thanks again, Brian

Re: 1963 Century-coronado
 

The upcoming NY show mentioned in Post #7 is in Buffalo, NY on 9/9/06.
Here are a couple of links. Looks like an interesting event.

http://www.vintageraceboatshop.com/Buffalo-2006.htm
http://www.vintageraceboatshop.com/i...006/Poster.pdf

The Century Boat Club will be there.

Re: 1963 Century-coronado
 

The hockey stick stripe was characteristic of the Century boats. I have not seen Thunderball recently. I don't look at the boat, usually the girl in the bikini. :rolleyes:

Re: 1963 Century-coronado
 

My dad kept me out of trouble by buying a 1956 Century Coronado with sliding hardtop back in the early '70s. Every year that thing needed a complete sanding, staining, chaulking, and varnish job. When I was done in the spring, that boat was absolutely gorgeous. The African mahogony just came alive against the white chaulking, and would draw a crowd whevever it went. Mahogony is probably the most beautiful wood you will ever see.

The engine was a dual quad Cadillac 331 engine, with two Carter four barrels. Honestly, the second set of four throats didn't do much for additional speed, but it sure sounded nice. Funny thing is, I tuned and tuned, and could never get it to idle smoothly. Many years later, after I knew more about engines, it occurred to me that perhaps it was the cam made it idle, well, less smooth than a Cadillac should. It had huge dual exhausts made of copper (I believe they were 3.5 inches), which I shined up, with chrome brass surrounds. Of couse, I loved the fact that it had no mufflers, just big straight pipes (which is becoming somewhat of a rarity now). The lower 3/4 of the exhausts sat just below the water line when stopped. A few times we would forget this, and everyone on the dock and nearby boats got soaked when we started the engine (we offered them a towel to dry off). The prop was brass, which also shined to a mirror finish.

The transmission was clutched, and there was a tall lever on the floor to the left of the driver for selecting forward, neutral and reverse.

The bottom was essentially flat near the rear, and while there was no GPS then, it did seem to get up some pretty good speed for such a heavy wooden boat.

The other Cadillac item was a Wonderbar vacuum tube AM radio in the dash, which tuned station to station electronically with a push of a button. I still remember putting in a new vibrator, which generated 12 volts A/C which would be stepped up in voltage for the tubes.

I have a lot of fond memories with that old Century, and that old boat was what got me interested in boating.

Michael

Re: 1963 Century-coronado
 

C,mon - someone on this board has to know trhe answer!

Thanks, Barry

Re: 1963 Century-coronado
 

I remember that well I to was a slave to the old century for many a spring day after school and weeh ends for weeks. had to redo the deck calk and scrape and paint the bottom and boot stripe. Then we had to carry buckets of water to fill the boat so it would swell up and seal just before it was put in the water. I hated it at the time but as I look back it was probly one of the coolest boats around in the early 60s( dateing myself) aaaaaaaaa thr good old days :D