16 OB Baby Owners - How Many Are Left?

[Greg Guimond]

A better picture of the Starflite III ........

[Greg Guimond]

Below is a link to a vintage 60's clip of Gerry Walin running the later Starflite IV at Lake Havasu. This video clip along with the still picture of Gerry petting the "baseball bat" exhaust would match Dr Lou Benz's description below of the motor that the 1965 Donzi 16 experimental OB Baby had when Walin had it built. Lou also mentions that he still has the Starflite IV money clip that Evinrude gave Gerry for setting the record.

Edit:6/12/13 Gerry Walin is on the left in the below picture.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. Lou Benz
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011
To: Guimond, Greg
Subject: RE: 1965 16 OB
I do not know where I have the pictures they are photographs not digital, I will look. I don't have any of the boat at rest in the water. Basically it was an inboard that was converted to outboard, Brownie said that he did not build outboards when he worked at Donzi but the pictures and documentation prove otherwise as that boat had only one previous owner Gerry Walin and was titled to him in 65 as an outboard. It had a 1965 90 hp Evinrude starflite with a custom exhaust that looked like four baseball bats sticking out of the back of the engine. The same type that was used by Walin to break the speed record.



http://www.google.com/imgres?start=1...72,s:100,i:220

[Greg Guimond]

A better picture of the 1966 Evinrude Starflite with the "4 baseball bat" exhaust. What is still a little confusing is the actual OB that was placed on the 1965 Donzi 16 OB Baby Prototype as discussed on the post below from Lou. If the prototype 16 OB Baby was a 1965, and Gerry Walin hung an Evinrude 135 Starflite GP on it, I have not been able to find any info on the 135, only the 1966 90-S.

Posts: 113
Big Bad Donzi: The boat was made this way by Donzi, Walin was a Donzi & Evinrude Dealer up north and sold both inboards and outboards. Don knew him very well. This was Gerry's personal boat He put a 135 hp Evinrude Starflite motor on it. Brownie said that Gerry died in an accident, I purchased the boat in 1976 when I worked for Bertam in Miami.

[Greg Guimond]

In 1970 Evinrude had this X-115 race motor, but I'm not sure why Gerry Walin would have waited until 1970 to mount a wacker on the first 16 Baby that Don built for him in 1965? And there is no "4 baseball bat" exhaust on the X-115.........hmmmm.

[Greg Guimond]

But with that in mind here is an interesting comment about the fact that the Evinrude factory was constantly experimenting back then. With this in mind, it certainly is possible that Don A built Gerry Walin the 16 Baby in 1965 and shortly thereafter, Walin having access to the best that Evinrude produced for race motors, was the one guy who could get a 135 Starflite GP.

Thanks, I should add that since these were limited build racing engines, nothing is constant and generalizations are dangerous. For example, the Starflite SS/Strangler and Stinger all used the same basic clubfoot as was later used on the Super Strangler/Stinger GP. However there were are least 3 variations of this that I can find and have seen, and probably more. They made one with a blunt nose (no protruding "cone"), then one with a slight, rounded nose, then still another with a very pronounced pointed nose. The factories were experimenting all the time then. Sad to say it, but those times are gone-hopefully some day to return? The best days of outboard racing.

John

[mattyboy]

Greg, may it possible that Don sold an unrigged I/O and Wallin modified it to an OB? A friend had a 16 Carlson in 1977 ish with a 75 stinger onit that boat was a lot of fun has a teenager.

[Greg Guimond]

Matty, it is possible but as I'm putting the pieces of the puzzle together I don't believe so. Lou's note below (and earlier in this thread) firmly indicates that the boat was titled as an OB but were there even Titles back in 1965 ? The other piece that now seems to line up is the fact that the 1966 Evinrude Starflite 100-S race motor pictured above clearly was the same "first" motor that Lou mentions below in his email as being hung on the back of the 1965 Donzi Baby in the pictures. It is sounding like Walin might first have hung a 90-S Starflite race motor when he got the hull from Don A and then, probably several years later switched the OB to the upgraded Starflite 135 which would have been the motor on the boat when Lou bought the package from Walin in 1976. I'm still trying to find a picture of the 135 Grand Prix but it is fun piecing together history.


"documentation proves otherwise as that boat had only one previous owner Gerry Walin and was titled to him in '65 as an outboard. It had a 1965 100 hp Evinrude starflite with a custom exhaust that looked like four baseball bats sticking out of the back of the engine. The same type that was used by Walin to break the speed record"

And here is a little additional information on Walin from seattleoutboard.org

YOU ALSO KNEW GERRY WALIN?
We used to call him the phantom. He'd be going
down the straightaway...he was so small he'd curl
up in the boat and you couldn't see if there was a
driver in it. That how he got the name phantom.
Jimmy Hallum really got him going and built a
lot of his equipment. Hallum could tell you
more about him than I could.

[Greg Guimond]

Some more sad info on Gerry Walin at the end ........his untimely death corresponds to the date Lou said he bought the 1965 Donzi 16 OB Baby

Straightaway records have been a proving ground for outboard drivers, and the success of some has been tempered by the tragedy that has befallen others. Entrop built Starflite IV, but retired from racing without ever running it. The boat was tailored to Gerry Walin, a rising star in the Seattle area. In 1966, he took Starflite IV through the straightaway traps at a speed of 130.929 mph on Lake Havasu. Wisconsin driver Jim Merton broke Walin's record in August, 1973, driving a 17-foot Mercury-powered Twistercraft to a speed of 136.381 mph. Walin set out to reclaim the record in September, 1974. He roared across Lake Havasu at better than 145 mph. Midway through the run, Starflite IV lifted off the water and flipped over. Walin survived the accident, but was paralyzed from the waist down. Unable to adjust to his new situation, he committed suicide about two years later.

you have it right. This was in 1974. The driver, Gerry Walin, had set Evinrude's previous kilo record in 1966 at nearly 131 mph. Jim Merten, driving for Mercury, established a new record in 1974 at just over 136 with a Twister II powerhead on a hydro. Evinrude broke the 1966 record-setting boat out of the mothballs to up the ante on Mercury, and Gerry was again the driver. Story was that he was fighting with his wife at the time and was not exactly "all there"; in addition he was one of those guys who would not listen when told what to do, he was going to do it his way. The engineers and setup guys told him to run just a few mph over the record; that the boat was not equipped to run much over 135. Reportedly, Walin was running well over 150 when he cartwheeled it in front of the small crowd. A Japanese photographer was there with a motor-drive camera and caught the entire sequence frame-by-frame. It ended up in the next issue of Sports Illustrated. Gerry was paralyzed from the accident. OMC spent a lot of money outfitting his house to accomodate him, but in the end he committed suicide. It was a tough ending to the factory top speed wars.

[Greg Guimond]

Here is a picture of a 16 OB Baby with a 1972 Evinrude Starflite 125hp OB on it. Getting closer to the Starflite 135.

[Greg Guimond]

The next year, 1973 Evinrude introduced the Starfire 135hp model. This upgraded 135 ran from 1973 to 1976 and those years align with the motor Dr Lou said was on the 1965 16 OB Baby when he bought it from Gerry Walin in 1976.

[Greg Guimond]

Don A was no stranger to building the occasional OB in the 60's as shown by this picture of his 1968 Magnum models .......and a man who was there

The Magnum Missile was a copy of the Austrian racing champ and boat builder, Dieter Schulze. Don bought a 16' and a 19' and copied both of them. After we sold Donzi to the Chisholms, I worked the 1968 Miami Boat Show for Don selling the 16' Missile. The demo boat had a 135 Merc, and ran 65 mph. It would make a 30' circle at that speed. Anyone with an underwear concession at the dock would have made a fortune, if you get my drift.

[Greg Guimond]

While the "Consumer" model Evinrude Starflite 135's were first offered in 1973, the year before OMC offered a race version to the competition circuit. It was a completely different motor known by two names.......the Evinrude Super Strangler or the Johnson Stinger GP, both identical motors except for the colors. Here is a picture of the 1972 Johnson Stinger GP, loosely based (displacement only) on the Starflite 135. The 1965 Donzi 16 OB Baby could have been upgraded with one of these race motors by Gerry Walin as it would have been the "next generation" of power above the 1966 Starflite 90-S Stacker that first hung on the transom of the 16. Six years (1966-1972) was a long time in the development of wackers back then and it was time for a new motor on the Baby. Gerry's relationship with OMC would have given him easy access to these race motors with 15" mids, special lower units, and a LOT of power.

[Greg Guimond]

Some additional photos of the Evinrude race "Super Strangler's" and Johnson race "Stinger GP's" first introduced in 1972 and campaigned on the race course for '72, '73, '74, and '75. The third and fourth photos are of the completely different "Consumer" Evinrude Strangler 135 20" painted blue and white and sold only in '74 and '75. Gerry Walin was still alive for all of these years but there is no picture of which of these motors he had upgraded to on the back of Dr. Lou's 1965 Donzi 16 OB Baby. I'll have to keep digging..........

[Greg Guimond]

In continuing to piece together the puzzle on what is possibly the first Donzi OB Baby built I have to go back to Gerry Walin to further develop the timeline. The shocking photo sequence below in SI of Walin's Lake Havasu accident puts a date stamp of September 1974 on the tragedy that left Gerry paralyzed. In addition, it is interesting to note the reputation Walin had for finding speed in any boat he ran. He would not have been experimenting with Donzi's and Evinrude race motors after that terrible day in September 1974 so any race motors he might have experimented with on the 1965 16 OB hull would have probably been in 1974. Make a note of the name Jim Hallum below.

"Hallum/Walin's most notable feat was surely the 100mph record set by Walin in BOH in about 1971. At this time, even the D's hadn't gone 100mph and wouldn't do so for a year or more. Everybody was blown away that an Anzani could go so fast. Before Walin got hurt, he made one more trip to Delake and ran 106 one-way. Gerry was not merely a driver of turn-key outfits by the way; he became expert at setting up his boats for race course or kilo, and showed fine wood working skills in building his last three boats. After Gerry got hurt, Jim got out of racing. Apart from his record as an engine developer, Jim Hallum (now in his mid-seventies) has always been one of the most likable men you could ever meet."

[Greg Guimond]

Here is a picture, albeit a poor one, of the suspect 1965 16 OB in flight back in the day. This was sent to me from Dr. Lou Benz owner of the 16 after Gerry Walin. And some information about Gerry from fellow racer Ron Hill. Gerry knew how to make any hull go faster.

I feel blessed that I knew Gerry Walin. His Seattle buddies called him the Phantom. He got speed where there wasn't speed. I saw him go 87 MPH in a 20 cubic inch Anzani at Modesto, 1964....The sad part of this saga, is that a capsule would have saved major injury and maybe nothing would save his death. You are aware that he O'D on pain killers? Rumor had it, the night before this run, there had been some domestic problems. I got this information from Jim Jost, Evinrude's PR man. Gerry was not to go as fast as he did. Who will ever know, the truth, but I heard that he was just going to go out and "Bust the record" and go home...If you'd known Gerry Walin, like I knew him, I'm sure he'd want back in on the next speed run.

I think it was Leonard Keller, of Keller speedometers, that named Walin the Phantom!!! The Phantom should never be forgotten!!!