35 Cafe Racer Review???
 

Looking for input of the 35 Cafe Racer, pros, cons?? engine and drive setups? weight? what speed per horsepower? drives, ssm 3 cleaver props? all you guys who have or had, what setup were you running and how did she handle. what to look for when buying?
just throwing some thoughts out there, you guys know what im getting at hopefully

I have never owned one but with any boat first limitation is rot. The older the boat the more likely. Check that very carefully or you're into a whole new can of worms.

Cig as a whole is a well built boat. Takes a good bit of power to get moving but they have a nice ride.

Give yourself a couple hours and search 'cafe' in the Cigarette forum. You will find all of your answers there. On earlier cafe's the outer tab bolt was screwed into the transom and prone to rot around the bolt [Your transom will not fall off - I just like my bolts snug]. If you check from the inside and see it is through-bolted you are good to go. If there are vertical stress cracks in the hull ahead of the cockpit she has been run hard, likewise if you go into the cabin and see separation cracks at the stringers or bulkhead.

Go with speedmasters, stay away if it has a notched transom, look over the carbon boats carefully. When those were built laminating carbon into the layup was pretty new from what I understand. And before someone else posts that cig missed putting the k planes on and the one lag bolt causes rotted transoms..... THAT IS NOT THE CASE ALMOST EVERY BOAT HAS THEM INSTALLED LIKE THIS. In fact a fastech formula uses all lag bolts on the k planes.

I would suspect you will be disappointed in a 20-25 yr old boat with less HP than your 370ss. Yeah you can get the T-shirt and be in the #1 club for cheap money but not sure you will be happy.

It would be kind of like taking Christie Brinkley out on a date today in a Ferrari 308, sounds fun until you realize those vacation movies were from 1985 and both her and the car have had a lot of miles on them since the movie came out!

Yea, but you'd still go balls deep on Christie Brinkly AND rock a 308 so there's that.... :D :D ;)

Funny thing, a couple of years ago one of the cable car shows had a drag race between a 308 and I think it was a Toyota Camry, the Toyota won.

Sure for old times sake but not too many kids today have her poster hanging on their bedroom wall (she is 60!) and 308s are cool but at less than 250 HP don't get in any drag races with a new minivan! :D

I like Cafes, great lines but they are old boats that take a ton of HP to make them go fast......

Hottest 60 yr old I know of.

So the Cafe I am looking at has 540 blower motors, north of 750 HP and a mid 80's boat, so I am told. Do you think these numbers add up and are true?
The thread on this boat was from a day ago
http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/g...e-racer-3.html
http://i1289.photobucket.com/albums/...ps90448996.jpg

F the 308, I ll put that piece of AS* Christie in the 1964 Nova and show Chevy Chase how he should of done it!!!