McCullough 60

[Skoontz]

This one is for the folks like Sam, who if you have a question regarding anything wierd, exotic, or never heard of, would usually know the answer....

Lemme splain. We were at a party last night, two function, to see friends and promote business, and the topic of the speaker was China, and the short version of history from 7000 years ago until now. Very interesting to say the least. I met a guy and his wife, who legally immigrated from Johanasburg, South Africa 23 years ago and are now citizens. Turns out he was a big gear head, and we could not stop talking shop even through the cultural stuff being presented. He raced many exotic motorcycles, such as Velocete, Vincente, BSA, Norton, Ducatti and so fourth, and later turned to hydroplane racing....The big engine there was the 3 cylinder Mc motors and he also said McCullough made their own boats....Hydros to be exact. He is going to E-mail his cousin in South Africa to see if there are any photos of the rig which I thought would be pretty cool if there were...

Question posed....Do any of you know of Mc making their own hydros, let alone boats? Apparently Robert traveled to S.A. allot and there was/still is a huge market for their engines.

[mac19f]

Yes they made boats. Actually Scott, their pedecessor company. They made a 15ft fiberglass sit down boat with sponsons that they called a hydro. It was meant to be packaged with their 3 cylinder 75hp with a high speed gearshift custom lower unit.

http://www.fiberglassics.com/scott/hscott2.jpg

[Mark75H]

That picture in Greg's link is the ski version of the race boat hull. They had a whole line of pleasure boats from about 10 ft to 20 ft that they sold as complete packages boat motor and trailer - way ahead of their time. I think you had to buy those boats with the Scott/McCulloch motors as a package, no choice.

Scott/McCulloch was not into racing small boats, more into OPC type endurance racing in the southwest's WOA circuit and locally in Minneapolis.

Dick Davis in AZ has a number of "Fantasy" Scott hydros derived from the Hydrocraft "Fantasy". Here's one of them before he owned it with a pair of 3 cylinder Scotts: 65mph

[Skoontz]

Very cool, guys...I hope the guy I met can send some of his South African photos...

Now here is another one. According to this guy, the family version Scott was 75HP. The race version was 60....Was this because of class rules of the day? Or, myth?

[Gene East]

As I read about the racer from South Africa I noticed his first name was Robert. Any chance his last name was Batty or Battey?

[Skoontz]

Gene:

I may have written that part a bit sideways. The Robert I was referring to was Robert McCoullough....

This racers name is Peter Markgraaff.

[Mark75H]

Now here is another one. According to this guy, the family version Scott was 75HP. The race version was 60....Was this because of class rules of the day? Or, myth?

There were 2 race versions.

One carried 60 hp emblems, just because the emblems themselves were carry-overs; the motors were actually 75 hp (this was 1961-62)

The second race version had no emblems, not even covers. It was 88hp.

[mercury400m]

got ne pics of those sam:)

[MN1]

Before the outboards http://www.vs57.com/history.htm
Mark

[RichardKCMo]

Before the outboards http://www.vs57.com/history.htm
Mark

Great answer.
RichardKCMo
Oh , they were all about 60 ci., and after all that's what it's about.
RichardKCMo.

[Mark75H]

got ne pics of those sam:)
http://www.boatracingfacts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=910
The boat:
http://www.boatracingfacts.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13258


Here is the 60/75hp type

[mercury400m]

thanks sam wanted one of those photo's for one of my business ads:)

[Skoontz]

The early version looks very similar to the Duesenberg/Cord/Auburn gear off crank driven superchargers, the only difference being a 1.5' long shaft heading into the main housing. The boost on those was around 9 lbs at 1500 RPM, but, they had undersquare motors with ungodly low end torque.

Very cool article!

[Mark75H]

Yeah, the Paxton supercharger is like the Cord/Dusie unit

But the valve on the outboard is not a supercharger - just a timed valve

[Skoontz]

You almost have to wonder if Robert McCullough ever knew Fred Duesenburg and had any inspiration from him.....They kind of thought the same way with their designing abilities