On March 19, 1931, on a statute-mile-measured course in England, the world record for a speed boat was set at 98.76 mph. The next day, in North Miami Beach, Florida, Detroit’s Gar Wood and his longtime friend, throttle man and engine mechanic Orlin Johnson, drove Miss America IX on Indian Creek to become the first men to exceed 100 mph on a powerboat.
Miss America IX was powered by twin 1,200-hp, 12-cylinder Packard motors featuring vertical exhaust pipes. Wood and Johnson sat aft of the engines where they were subjected to heat, fumes and the visceral pounding of exhaust air pressure.
They made five runs, northward and southward, to allow for tidal and wind influences. Wood’s averaged speed of 101.154 mph on a statute mile course, and 102.256 mph on a nautical mile course, drew wide international acclaim.
Less than a year later, on the same course, Wood and Johnson broke their previous record by pushing Miss America IX to an average speed of 110.223 mph. They made two runs. The first and fastest run, achieved with a modest tailwind, was measured at 112.434 mph. Power was again supplied by a brace of V-12 Packards, this time with superchargers, which boosted each engine’s output to 1,600 horsepower.
Miss America IX was built in Algonac, Michigan, in a factory that once belonged to Christopher Smith & Sons, which would eventually become the headquarters of Chris-Craft. All 10 of Gar Wood’s Miss America racing boats were designed by Nap Lisee, who was a renowned wooden boat designer. Lisee always laid out the lines on the floor of the factory—never once using blueprints—and each hull was one of a kind, specifically sized to accommodate the tanks, engines and crew.
Miss America IX had a triple-planked bottom, spruce stringers and ribs, and red mahogany topsides that were finished bright. She was fastened with Everdur screws and bolts, a highly popular alloy line from the American Brass Company in Waterbury, Connecticut. Propellers came from the Hyde Windlass Company of Bath, Maine.
In 1958, Gar Wood donated the boat to the Algonac Lions Club. By the time enthusiast Charles Mistele got his hands on her in 1970 she no longer had her engines and most of her fittings had been stripped. He repowered her with twin 427 Chevrolet racing engines and drove her—often at full throttle—until his death in 2020.
This article was originally published in the November 2024 issue.
