Our First Pleasure Boat – Built To Win

It all started when some local boaters got together on the weekend and raced each other in their wood or aluminum boats. Paul Allison always wanted to outrun everyone there.

One day someone gave him an old rotten wood boat which he promptly took apart, carefully saving the screws and hardware. After discarding the rotten wood, he began building his own wooden boat using the screws and hardware he had saved. This boat outran any boat he had previously raced!

The year was 1955.

With a taste of success he wanted to try and make the boat run even faster. He built another boat with a hull utilizing more of his own ideas and it outran the last one he had built. His friends began to ask him to build a boat for them since his was faster than anyone else’s.

After being seriously injured from a gunshot wound on a hunting trip and spending several months in recovery, he decided to leave the auto body business and build boats, since there was a demand for a wood boat that would outrun other boats.

In 1959 Paul built his last wood boat, but not without being the first to break 60 mph in a production pleasure boat, setting a straightaway speed record of 61.8 mph with a stock 80 hp!

In 1960 fiberglass became available for boat building and he built his first 14′ fiberglass boat (pictured above).

Innovation Leads to Success

1970’s

• Paul Allison invents the wing stabilizer for boats
• Paul Allison invents the front foil on tunnel boats
• Paul Allison invents the cupped skeg on engine lower unit

We Are the Pioneers of the Bass Boat