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View Full Version : The Legendary Dunphy X-55 !



Craig
11-05-2008, 11:19 AM
Popped a couple short video clips of a Dunphy X-55 on to You Tube. This is a boat "like" the one I'm SLOWLY working on restoring.
I added the videos to YouTube here this AM with the owner's permission.
I know they've been discussed here before a little and were of some interest.
I popped into the titles the wording "THE FASTEST STOCK INBOARD IN THE WORLD" as a sort of attention grabber, but that was literally in some of the Dunphy Boat company's printed information back when they were built because they were definitely built to fly. The X-55 model name, as near as I can gather from researching them, was a loose claim that the boats would run in that ballpark of the mid fifties; mighty fast for a 17'2" direct drive inboard of the mid 1960's. And it's still mighty fast today! I know this has all been discussed here before about these little wooden rockets of the past, but I figured everyone here would enjoy the video links and restating it would serve to update anyone who hasn't been "on board" here for a while.
The only down side is that, you can tell in both videos, that the driver (the owner's wife) backs off the throttle a good bit once on plane so you won't here the old 312 Ford Interceptor (that they pretty much all had originally) wind up to Wide Open Throttle, but still fun clips to watch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QalrPT0h9-k
and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqHjofm_a84

Enjoy! :shades:

zelatore
11-07-2008, 02:39 PM
Cool. Get's up on plane pretty quick too.

Craig
11-14-2008, 12:28 PM
They do come on plane quickly. With the 215 HP 312 Interceptor and its light weight of only about 1800 lbs (all skin is 3/8" ply) they're pretty quick.

Here's a picture of mine (painted white with an incorrect mid 80's Ski Nautique windshield), then a pic of it now (with the correct glass), and then an old catalog pic or what it's suppose to look like.

Also threw in another showing what most of them looked like (the blue vynil in the center of the deck was most common - a few like mine (and the catalog pic) had a solid white vynil deck). I've often wondered if mine could be the one in the catalog pic since it has a white deck and there were possibly only 50 or so made; so even less with a solid white deck. Could be mine?!?!?