02-01-2006, 06:18 PM
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My grandfather's Aquarama had twin Chrysler power ....
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02-01-2006, 09:17 PM
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Christopher Boles
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What is the engine number? That will give you a clue as to the manufacture year or what model car it was destined to go in to. Alfa Romeo should have the marine engines written in to a book as the cars, so I would think.
Mahogany boats are big in the USA. There is huge mahogony boat flotilla meet every year on Lake Tahoe and one in Houston Texas that is in conjunction with a big car show.
Alot of mahogany boats reside in the Venice area from what I have seen in pictures. I wonder if someone around there would know where this boat came from. Are there any identifying numbers or marks inside the engine compartment or up under the dash?
Christopher
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02-14-2006, 12:10 PM
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 Quote:
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Originally Posted by dretceterini
Is the ZH the original registration number? If so, possibly Swiss?
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Arno
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02-14-2006, 12:24 PM
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by tubut
I noticed it, too -- and Stu, you're probably correct. The truck in the background has "Kilchberg" written on it. Kilchberg is a small town on Lake Zurich in Switzerland, and ZH is used as an official abbreviation for the Canton of Zurich.
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At that time and before he learnt me many things about Alfas.
Arno
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02-14-2006, 12:31 PM
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Curtis
Your boat is magnificent!!
Curious to know exactly what year it was manufactured? The more modern windshield style would have led me to place the boat in a different (little more modern) era than the engine vintage would suggest.
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Picco loved his boat - 3 Weber carb's, direct air intake, high performance ignition coil, very fast, the fastest boat on lake of Zurich until well in the 60's!
Arno
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02-14-2006, 12:47 PM
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by velocedoc
What is the engine number? That will give you a clue as to the manufacture year or what model car it was destined to go in to. Alfa Romeo should have the marine engines written in to a book as the cars, so I would think.
Mahogany boats are big in the USA. There is huge mahogony boat flotilla meet every year on Lake Tahoe and one in Houston Texas that is in conjunction with a big car show.
Alot of mahogany boats reside in the Venice area from what I have seen in pictures. I wonder if someone around there would know where this boat came from. Are there any identifying numbers or marks inside the engine compartment or up under the dash?
Christopher
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I am in contact with more and more people to find out who built it where and when exactly. I know that the 6C 2500 motore marino was built also for the Italian ministery of military and defence from 1940 onwards. Patrol boats were built with this device to be able to control lake and sea shores fast. The engine was a masterwork as it had double water cooling, a dry sump and the z-drive. Furthermore several shipyards built sports boats with this engine and drive.
My boat is relatively slim and light (double diagonal plywood planking) and although being a five seater is very sporty. Picco tuned it to be one of the fastest.
Arno
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02-14-2006, 01:07 PM
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Senior Member
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arno
Yes, the boat was registered on lake of Zurich the first time in 1942, owned by a Swiss race driver.
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Ruedi
'63 2600 Touring Spider (apart)
'65 2600 SZ (resto project)
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02-14-2006, 01:19 PM
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by tubut
Wow, to be able to buy such a boat in the middle of WWII required deep pockets. Was the racer Christian Kautz?
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Arno
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02-14-2006, 04:08 PM
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Christian Kautz drove Mercedes, Alfa and Maserati. He drove Alfa 308's before the war and was exceedingly well connected to Alfa. Certainly, he was somebody who could have gotten a boat like this during the war. He died at the Swiss Grand Prix at Bremgarten in 1948 during the same event that Achille Varzi died.
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02-15-2006, 03:03 AM
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Leif Snellman's outstanding web site describing race car drivers of the "Golden Era" 1934-40 lists Christian Kautz on this page. In 1939, Kautz entered 3 Alfas in the GP of Belgium (Chinetti was one of the drivers) supposedly "to avoid any future problems with the Italian authorities" as stated here. In 1946, Kautz and Baron Emmanuel de Graffenried (also CH) formed Team Autosport and raced Maseratis privately.
Do you know who the Swiss race driver was who owned your boat?
I presume Kautz (or any other Swiss race car driver of that period) probably also knew Luciano Uboldi, another Swiss racer mainly involved in Maserati-powered power boats. Googling for Uboldi did not provide any useful links, but researching Uboldi's background may give you some hints to find the builder of your boat.
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Ruedi
'63 2600 Touring Spider (apart)
'65 2600 SZ (resto project)
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02-15-2006, 01:49 PM
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by tubut
Leif Snellman's outstanding web site describing race car drivers of the "Golden Era" 1934-40 lists Christian Kautz on this page. In 1939, Kautz entered 3 Alfas in the GP of Belgium (Chinetti was one of the drivers) supposedly "to avoid any future problems with the Italian authorities" as stated here. In 1946, Kautz and Baron Emmanuel de Graffenried (also CH) formed Team Autosport and raced Maseratis privately.
Do you know who the Swiss race driver was who owned your boat?
I presume Kautz (or any other Swiss race car driver of that period) probably also knew Luciano Uboldi, another Swiss racer mainly involved in Maserati-powered power boats. Googling for Uboldi did not provide any useful links, but researching Uboldi's background may give you some hints to find the builder of your boat. |
It has been imported via Geneva customs Febr 12th, 1947. The weight was declared to be 930 kg (may-be lighter now due to the plexi windshield instead of the glass version). I got even there drawing showing the original flat windshield. All technical details incl. the engine number are listed in the original document!
The boat's first name was 'Alfetta'. I called it Lontra (Otter) because my
1938 car is named 'beaver' (a family tradition to give animal names to our
cars.. - hej, don't laugh!). It was immatriculated with the number plate Z 454 (still on the boat) June 6, 1951 by a Mr. Kessler from Zurich, born Dec 18, 1896, who sold it to the Swiss race driver and entrepreneur Willy Daetwyler, born July 2, 1919, who won the Klausen race and who had himself even a 8C 2900, I believe. He sold the boat to Bruno Picco who serviced all street and race cars of Daetwyler.
In 1980 I got the boat.
The document shows the boat to have 100 HP in 1951. Picco tuned it to some 120 HP.
The shipyard or constructor is listed as well: Cattaneo, Milano (not a ship yard of Lago d'Iseo as Picco told me! I did not find any info about this company yet with the exception of that fact that screws of engine and the gearbox on certain marine engines are marked with Cattaneo... In Milan there are the famous canals (naviglio) which means it was possible to build a boat on the waterfront and use the river canal to drive up or down (to the Po and to the sea near Ferrara) the Po plane and of course they uses trailers as well. Interesting to me is the fact that there is a canal very close to the old Arese Alfa Romeo factory called naviglio Villoresi...
It could still be that Cattaneo was the project leader for the technical execution of boats for Alfa Romeo and not the shipyard (there were very many small but very talented shipyards on an artisanal level - for sports boats anyway, during or short after the war).
The description of the boat in the official document gives us further informations:
The woods used are oak (underbody), larch tree (covers, interior - very age
resistent and strong) and Mahagony (top) as described in the document but I
am not sure the underbody is really oak and not double plywood.
The petrol tank is copper, 70 ltrs. Even the exhaust dimensions and the detail
measures for the counterrotating propellers are listed.
I contacted Alfa Romeo to have information on the engine manufacturing date based on the engine number. It could be the engine was manufactured earlier and surplus war production than used for a sports boat.
Further questions remain open to me. Why was the boat imported via Geneva if Chiasso would have been much more direct to bring it to Zurich? May-be it was or supposed to be shown on an exhibition in Geneva - before the spring auto show...? Suppositions.
I hope I could at least entertain you all who read this. Fascinating it is! - is it not?
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02-15-2006, 04:44 PM
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Congratulations on finding that information. It is indeed fascinating. Thanks to the outstanding archives of Swiss authorities, my brother was able to obtain the original import documentation of a 1926 Chrysler he is restoring. It's nice to know his car was not an exception.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arno
Further questions remain open to me. Why was the boat imported via Geneva if Chiasso would have been much more direct to bring it to Zurich? May-be it was or supposed to be shown on an exhibition in Geneva - before the spring auto show...? Suppositions.
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Pictures borrowed from TrekEarth and CarPhoto.
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Ruedi
'63 2600 Touring Spider (apart)
'65 2600 SZ (resto project)
Last edited by tubut; 02-15-2006 at 06:21 PM.
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02-16-2006, 01:00 AM
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by tubut
Congratulations on finding that information. It is indeed fascinating. Thanks to the outstanding archives of Swiss authorities, my brother was able to obtain the original import documentation of a 1926 Chrysler he is restoring. It's nice to know his car was not an exception.
I think there is a much more practical answer to your question: Unless the boat could be loaded onto a railroad car, the only passable road by a truck would have been OVER the Gotthard pass -- an extremely challenging route with 12% incline. Imagine climbing the hair-pin curves of the "Tremola" with a boat on a truck or on a hanger on a road that most certainly was narrower than shown in the color picture below, or through the Schöllenen (b/w picture), which wasn't upgraded with a new Devil's bridge until 1953. However, the Gotthard pass probably was closed for winter at the time of import. Therefore, driving around the Alps and bringing the boat in from the West probably was the only practical solution in mid-winter.
Pictures borrowed from TrekEarth and CarPhoto. |
Thank you for the pictures. In the fifties when the Wirtschaftswunder started the Tremola was already traffic blocked on nice summer week-ends and every few hundred meters there were cars standing with overheated engines. Can you see them looking long enough on your photos?
All the Best
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02-16-2006, 05:57 PM
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Christopher Boles
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Location: At the other end of the state
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This thread is fascinating to read. Amazing you found an original document in Switzerland with the history and technical information on your boat.
I went to my Fusi library and I could not find a engine series with 925xxx. This must be special numbering for motore marino. I know there were engines built just for boats by Alfa Romeo but I don't have any records to show this.
Even the Amico e Tabucci book doesn't show any marine engines in their listing-unless I missed something.
I will be interested to know more about these engine numbers.
Would be a great thread just to talk about Alfa Romeo boats and racing history. There is very little spoken about this genre of Alfa Romeo.
Christopher Boles
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02-16-2006, 10:35 PM
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