The scan above was taken from a 1963 Chris Craft brochure. I am sure there are Corsair models, perhaps some 1964 boats, that are still out there in good shape. The Corsair name has basically vanished these days, from the old boats, and it's been resurrected in a new model. This article is sort of the "rosetta stone" for me, since I'm not all that well informed about the dawn of fiberglass production at Cortland. For the first time the "Lancer" name appeared on one of the boats." Wouldn't this be a rare bird for your collection!īy 1966 they had twelve Corsairs in the fleet. She was built exactly the same as the wooden Thompson Cruisette of that year! I am sure they pulled a plug from one of the wooden boats to make the 'glass model. Also that year the Corsair group made one and only one fiberglass XL210 twenty-one foot long Cadet Cruiser. Both were lapstrake in appearance one in RFP and the other in wood. As an example, the 1964 Corsair XL 200 Sea-V mldel from that same year. "A number of the initial models looked very similar to the wooden lapstrakes that Thompson was making at the time. Here is a passage that adds some interesting information : I do not know the date of this article or what publication it came from. I found an article by Andreas Jordahl Rhude, and it adds some good information to the search. I'll have to look in The Essential Guide to see when they stopped making the Thompson inspired boats and went strictly to the other models.Īnd let us not forget that in Chris Craft's past, Corsair was a proud model name from the 1950's for a large,lovely, mahogany Cabin Cruiser. This is a little heavy on the Lancer side of the information, but it does show the link and progression of and from the Thompson Boat Company influence to the stand alone Chris Craft engineering and image of these models. Somewhere in about 1968 or so they came out with the XK's and other models. I know my old 1968 Lancer had the Lancer badges. I think that in about 1968 they started having just the Lancer badging on the hullsides. The early 23' hulls had Corsair emblems on the hullsides. The 23' Lancer seems to have first appeared in 1966 and were originally called Corsair Lancers. To me the Corsairs appear to be slightly different fiberglass versions of the Thompson wood boat line. I think that this was a first departure from the "Thompson by Chris Craft" or "Thompson Division of Chris Craft" era. And it could have possibly been a little sooner, but that was the first evidence that I have personally come across. So it would appear that Chris Craft was selling the Corsair line out of Cortland as early as 1965. Or at least it was advertised as a 1965 brochure. I have seen a 1965 Corsair sales brochure that appeared on ebay recently.
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