Swift Big D home

[Ron Hill]

The Jupiter, Entrop and Hedlund all had the "S" up front between the spoons.


My brother's C-D-F-X had a 3/8 "S" between the back of the sponsons and the after plane. The concept, as Joe Swift told me, was to keep the boat from getting airborne. Might have worked at slow speeds...


You can see, that the "PLAN" was for the driver to ride near the steering wheel and "PROP RIDE"...as full length traps weren't invented yet..

[curbman]

So a big thanks goes out to Bill Van Steenwyk for sourcing me Brass ring nails I needed. He was the first to step up to the plate. A very big thanks to David Liebetreu for sourcing me the original steering wheel, front handle and all the original decals. This Swift Big Dee will be looking like the day it was shipped to it's original buyer/racer. More to come as time allows.

[MonsterNine]

That's a cool front handle. Is it an original or is it a repro? Are they still being made, and if so, by who? I gotsta get me some!!! (if it's not an original)

[russhill]

In response about the air traps---they were definitely wood and I don't think they were screwed in like suggested above for adjusting length. They came with air traps--wood one size fit all.

I don't think the whole second generation (Atomic A, Big Bee and Big Dee) Swifts were anywhere near as popular as the first generation (A-B and C-D-F-X). I think the only real differences were the cowlings.

I got to know Joe (Swift) pretty well in later years in our Offshore years. He wasn't really a boat builder and his real pride was how many he had produced in the early Stock Outboard days. He was pretty much out of the boat building biz by the time he put out the second generation.

A great guy and a great era.

[DeanFHobart]

Russ,

Do you know how many racing boats Swift made???

[russhill]

No, sorry, I don't have any firm idea. I'll make a guess and maybe somebody can agree or supply a better guess. Based on APBA registrations,etc., I'd say 2,000 ABs, 1,000 CDFXs and maybe 200 each of the three second generation boats.

Nice thing about being old is I can make up numbers and anybody who could refute them is dead.

[russhill]

Dean, Just looked up Swift in Peter Hunn's "Golden Age of the Racing Outboard" and he said Swift had built 8-9,000 boats. This would include other boats than just the above mentioned Stock Outboard hydros.

[curbman]

That's a cool front handle. Is it an original or is it a repro? Are they still being made, and if so, by who? I gotsta get me some!!! (if it's not an original)

The handle is an original bow handle that were used on the Swift Big Dee. Maybe a hardware pro will chime in and reveal a source for the handle in the picture or something close to it. I agree it is a very nice handle.

[DeanFHobart]

Dean, Just looked up Swift in Peter Hunn's "Golden Age of the Racing Outboard" and he said Swift had built 8-9,000 boats. This would include other boats than just the above mentioned Stock Outboard hydros.

That's lots of boats.

[zul8tr]

So how is the Swift restoration going? Any pics to update the progress?