Robert McCulloch, McCulloch outboards
Robert McCulloch; an outboard innovator
Robert P McCulloch was born May 11, 1911, into a family that already included several visionaries. His maternal grandfather, John Beggs, made his fortune by investing in Thomas Edison's inventions, and founded Milwaukee's public utility system. His own father was the president of United Railway Company, a trolley car and inter-urban railroad.
Robert McCulloch, along with his two siblings, inherited his Grandfather Beggs's fortune on 1925. Pursuing engineering, he attended Princeton University in 1928, but transferred to Stanford a year later. He took with him his love for boat racing, and by the time he graduated in 1932, he had won 2 national championship trophies for outboard hydroplane racing.
Two years after he graduated, he married Barbra Ann Briggs, whose parents were the Briggs of Briggs and Stratton. His first manufacturing endeavor was McCulloch Engineering Company, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There he built racing engines and superchargers. In his early 30's he sold the company to Borg-Warner Corp for 1 million dollars.
McCulloch then started McCulloch Aviation, which he moved to California within three years. In 1946 he changed his company's name to McCulloch Motors. Building small gasoline engines, his competitors included his in-laws and Ralph Evinrude. Evinrude led the market for boat motors, while Briggs and Stratton pulled ahead in the lawn mower and garden tractor market.
It was the chainsaw niche that McCulloch dominated, beginning with the first chainsaw with his name on it, manufactured in 1948. By the next year, McCulloch's 3-25 further revolutionized the market, with the one man, light weight chainsaw.
Robert McCulloch's empire continued to expand, with the creation of McCulloch Oil Corporation in the 1950's. C.V, Wood, who had been involved with the planning of the original Disneyland and the first Six Flags park in Arlington Texas, became the president of McCulloch Oil. McCulloch Oil pursued oil and gas exploration, land development and geothermal energy.
In spite of Evinrude's market lead, McCulloch continued to pursue McCulloch Motor's quest for the outboard market during the next decade. This quest led him to Lake Havasu, in that search for a test site. The search turned into something far beyond the imagination and expectations of most people, and changed the course of Arizona history.
McCulloch was famous for innovation and new ideas, which he brought with him to the outboard business. One of these ideas was marketing a complete line of factory matched boat, motor, and trailer combinations. The customer could purchase the complete package, already put together and rigged at the factory. This idea became very popular 25 years later with such companies as Bayliner. The McCulloch boats were very innovative as well, with features not seen on any other boat. But that is another story. McCulloch also produced a very successful racing version of the 75 HP motor, with a custom lower unit. McCulloch also had the first surface gap spark plug, 100 to 1 oil mixture, the first modern low profile fishing motor, the first diesel powered outboard, and much more. Some projects which were in the experimental phase were a 125 HP four cylinder, radial 2 stroke outboard. It measured 18" wide, 26" long and 52" high and weighed 260 lbs. It was called the R-120, and incorporated a turbo-supercharger plus re-entry turbine. It had fuel injection plus force feed lubrication to eliminate the need for mixing gas and oil. It had power steering, power tilt and trim and a variable pitch prop.
To properly utilize his newly developed Lake Havasu test site, McCulloch built a dynamometer boat, a virtual floating laboratory for testing his outboards.
Lake Havasu, named for the Mohave word "Havasu", which means "blue water", sparked the imagination of McCulloch, who purchased 3500 acres of lakeside property along Pittsburgh Point, the peninsula that would eventually be transformed into "the island". The property had originally been purchased from the Santa Fe Railroad, by World War II veterans.
In 1963, on the courthouse steps of Kingman, Arizona, McCulloch purchase a 26 square mile parcel of barren desert, that would become the site for Lake Havasu City. At the time, it was the largest single tract of state land ever sold in Arizona, and the cost per acre was under $75.
McCulloch Properties, Inc., a subsidiary of McCulloch Oil, was the division that that developed Lake Havasu City. One of the first steps was to purchase Holly Development, in 1964, to utilize their licensed real estate force.
McCulloch had purchased 11 Lockheed Electras, and formed McCulloch International Airlines, to fly in prospective buyers from all over the country. Splashy magazine ads enticed snow-weary would be customers to take a free flight to Paradise. When they arrived, they were greeted by one of the Holly salesmen, who taxied them around in the trademark white Jeep. In all, there were 40 identical vehicles in the fleet, said to be the largest contingent of white Jeeps in the world.
To spur the growth of the infant city, in 1964 McCulloch opened a chainsaw factory in the new community. Within two years there were three manufacturing plants, with 400 employees. Yet it was the purchase of the London Bridge, in 1968, that gave the worldwide exposure to the development.. McCulloch was searching for a unique attraction for his city, which eventually took him to London.
By the early 60's, it was apparent that the London Bridge was gradually sinking into the River Thames. It was decided that a new bridge would need to be built. But rather than razing the bridge, it was decided to put the historic landmark on the auction block.
When casting his bid for the London Bridge, McCulloch doubled the estimated cost of dismantling the structure, which was 1.2 million dollars, bringing the price to $2,400,000. He then added on $60,000, a thousand dollars for each year of his age. This earned him the winning bid, and in 1968 he became the new owner of the London Bridge.
It took three years to complete the project. The structure was dismantled brick by brick, with each piece marked and numbered. The granite pieces were stacked at the Surrey Commercial Docks, and then were shipped through the Panama Canal, to Long Beach California. From Long Beach the granite blocks were trucked 300 miles inland.
The peninsula was then transformed into an island, as a mile long bridge channel was dredged, giving purpose to the transplanted landmark. Included with the bridge purchase, were the unique lampposts, molded from French cannons captured during the 1815 battle of Waterloo.
Unfortunately, this created a drain on McCulloch's resources, as the cost to dismantle, transport, and reassemble the bridge turned out to much higher than anticipated. Consequently, the line of McCulloch outboard motors dropped by the wayside, along with some of McCulloch's other endeavors.
Lake Havasu City became a huge success, and Robert McCulloch realized his dream of transforming the Arizona desert. He died in 1977.
Paris, France: Hilton Hotel
I was in the Paris (France) Hilton Hotel Bar (We were racing the Six Hours of Paris the next day)... Bob Sr., Bob Jr. and C.V. Wood came in and said they'd just bought the London Bridge for like 2 million dollars...and they were going to move it to Havasu...and any left over pieces would be sold to tourists...They figured they'd get their 2 million back from selling pieces of the London Bridge...
I told them, "You dumb Jackasses, I'd have sold you the Effiel Tour for a million..."
Many insiders always called Havasu "THE LAND SWINDLE"....it is quite a city today and no reason to believe it won't continue to grow...When they first brought the bridge to Havasu, each piece was numbered like a big puzzle...and the bridge was black as black can be, not like it is today!!!!
Demise of McCulloch outboards
I was told, by Jack Biagio ,who, at the time was a McCulloch dealer in Napa, Calif.
that the reason Bob went out of the outboard motor manufacturing business was that when he came out with the 75 horse model he said "the world will never NEED a bigger motor. ". And he fired his engineers ,not being needed. Then ,as his motors got left in the dust, he saw sales plummet . I suspect this is partly or mostly true .
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London Bridge Opens, October 10, 1971
Cool deal, really....Boat X-1 is Ted May.....Whenever anyone had a CAMERA, TED MAY was the first one there... Great SHOWMAN.....and great ambassadore for boat racing world wide. Ted was the first one to drive a race boat under the Londo Bridge, in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
