Priceless historic footage. And particularly exciting since Chris-Craft built Grade-A boats or perhaps the best that could be had. There are a lot of people that think people were dumb years ago, but the opposite is true. Boat building done at the high level of Chris-Craft and some other maritime builders were working in a very technical area of the day, albeit slide-rule and blueprints. In my late teens I knew a man that owned a 1929, 30' ELCO "motor cruiser" (as I recall it being referred to). It was a cabin cruiser in basic design, including a galley and head. The propulsion was through a sizeable electric motor (thus the company name, ELCO) fed by a couple of banks of batteries. Additionally, it had a roughly 25' mast, with a sail that could be raised to supplement the electric motor, for either greater speed or less demand from the batteries. As well, the sail could be implemented were there a failure of the electric motor system such as depleted batteries.

Great video - My mom Regina Berger when she was a teenage in Algonac, Michigan in the 1940's watched Chris Smith's grand kids - Bernard & Neil Smith. Their father also worked at the Chris Craft factory in Algonac. Chris Smith who was a duck hunter and made his own boats made some really neat wood fast boats. They just glided on the water too!

Love old video tapes like this.

Very insightful, I have a new respect for Chris Craft (nice engines by the way) as I'm a Century guy... Thanks for posting!

Very Cool 😅👍👍👍

Fabulous footage, thanks for posting!

People oughta remember that most of these “boat builders “ came from other professionals and learned on the job before gaining their expertise !!! … take some initiative and a shot of ambition and build your own “Chris-Craft” !!!

I would have guessed that Chris Craft would of had their motors made for them by an engine manufacturing company like Continental or Hurcules .

Hard to hear the engines with all that subtitling going on!