In the early years of the outboard boat motors development, many people started companies and made their own boat motors in the hopes of selling them and making a lot money. For various reasons most of them did not last long. Here a few of the ones that are known and a little bit of information about them. I’m sure that many guys made outboard motors in their garage or workshops back then that nobody ever heard of and are now lost to history.
The 1887 Harthan Outboard Boat Motors
In that year Emerson Harthan from Massachusetts filed and received a U.S. patent for his steam powered detachable outboard motor design that featured a four bladed boat propeller. For some reason not known, he never went past the design stage of development and it was never produced. It was reported at the time that the Mr. Harthan’s plans looked very interesting.
The 1898 Miller Outboard Motor
Harry Miller was a famous race car developer. He briefly experimented with putting his car engines in boats and was known to have some of the fastest speedboats around at that time.
In 1898 he decided to make a four cylinder outboard motor that was said to have looked very strange to say the least but worked extremely well and was very fast. For some reason he decided not to go any farther with this project then and went back to cars. In the early 1930’s a small California company started making odd looking four cylinder outboard motors but did not last long. Probably because of the depression. The company was owned by Harry Miller.
The 1898 Savage Outboard Boat Motor
Edward Savage of Rochester New York produced a 2 cycle, one cylinder outboard motor that had a variable pitched boat prop and enclosed lower unit. Both features were years ahead of their time. He tested it on Lake Ontario that summer and it was said to have been a very nice looking engine that worked well. Mr. Savage was more interested in toy design and never put his engine into production. If he did we might be using Savage motors today.
The 1900 Imperial Outboard Engine
Fred and Robert Valentine from Minneapolis advertised their boat motor called the Imperial in 1900. Their engine had two horsepower and they claimed speeds up to eight miles per hour. Nobody is sure what ever happened to the Imperial and there are no engines known to exist today. In 1982 someone from the Antique Outboard Motor Club happened to see their ad in an old city directory, that found ad is the only information we have about the the Valentine brothers and the Imperial outboard motor.
Dan’s Discount Props sells the best outboard boat props for these engines and all other boat engine types at lower discount prices.
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