Sounds like they all have you covered with good advice.  All I might add is that prep has a HUGE impact on the end result.    My Brendella still looked fantastic when I sold it after many years of beating on it.  The only issues were self inflicted on my part.

Get a good paint and do your homework and it will turn out awesome!

Update...pictures

X2   I need a new project and Jan says she wants something like a 21' tunnel to give us more room.......................

Well, it's terrible fat but running.   Found out that my mix screws were off and loading it up at idle but goes those even'd out and much better.   Now if it wasnt so crappy in the weather department we'd have something!

Okay, we finally hooked up by phone.  Super nice guy.  We probably talked for almost 2 hours and though this isnt anywhere near the whole story, it gives you a smattering of what we talked about.   I cant wait to see the pictures cuz there were so many custom pieces built and unfortunately dont exist today.  Dont know what happened to those but I would love to see them.   I'll post them up as soon as I get them (though I suspect it will be a while).

Here goes

The boat was bought as a bare hull from Sanger in 1977 thru Bruce Halloway of GTH Marine after Jack Davidson had stopped selling bare hulls to the public.  The color was black with gold and orange stripes in the typical Sanger fashion.

He had full stringers installed along with the wood flooring.

The motor was a blown 468 with twin dominators running 22% over.

The boat had a Lenco multi disc clutch with air shifter to activate it.

The pump was built by Dave Bostrom of GT Boats (was GTH Marine at the time) with a AQ shaft, stainless A impeller with a “fuel” cut.  Custom cut shoe and loader.  Double drilled bowl and long droop with a race nozzle with inserts. He said at the time, it was the very best of the best in parts.   The pump was fully pinstriped inside and out.  Unfortunately, the pump is no longer in this boat but the suction housing is the original one given that there’s pinstriping in the intake area.

Mike Farley did the paint including the pinstriping, numbering and murals. I’ll be honest, the name didn’t ring a bell to me but as soon as I started surfing the web I found many of his works on both boats as well as race cars.   Gonna have to do more research here.

The trailer was custom built for the boat with completely ground and smoothed welds, braided wiring (still present) and pinstriped throughout.  The hubs were drilled for both Chevy and Ford pattern.

A Halon fire suppression system was installed with hardlines throughout.  Nozzles on the gunnels as well as mounted solid to the motor on the heads.

The Cav plate hardware was built by George Shilala of Finishline.   

All the custom machine work, rail kits, tiller for the Calgo steering as well as the aluminum seat frames were done by his friend Don La Franchi.  Don’s a master sheetmetal man as well as a self taught machinist and has such attention to detail that he was knicknamed many years ago “Sano Don”.

A good friend that worked at Roy Brizio Street Rods assisted in getting all the hardware anodized (including the AN fittings) in matching colors. The wiring as well as the sparkplug wires were all custom colored to match the paint.  The boat was sponsored by Sanderson Headers so needless to say, he ran those headers.

The boat competed in the 1979/1980 season of the ISCA circuit ultimately winning the national championship in both Custom Boat and Comp Boat.  It was so successful and dominating that the judges were having to break out the catagories as many protested it’s dominance.   He still has the plaques as well as trophies and it was incredible to listen to him read off all the awards he still has.

At the time it was named the champion, it was the first Jet boat to when the championship. 

It was retired as I mentioned at previously at Lake Shasta with much fanfair.   He sparingly used it for a year or so before he ended up selling the hull to a friend for $7000 in around 1983.

He still has many of the judges sheets, trophies, awards, display boards as well and 100’s of pictures and is working on putting together a portfolio for my son along with a few parts that he still has.

He has some great stories like when he was at either the Oakland Roadster Show or the Cow Palace (I cant remember which he said) when there was a protest that his engine was a dummy and didn’t run.   He was given 3 hours to prepare it (never kept oil or gas in it so there were no chances of leaks) and swap out the exhaust (didn’t want to blue the chrome Sandersons).   He got that all done and had some zoomies mounted up and much to the disappointment of his competitors, fired the engine.  The boat was alongside one of the walls and the exhaust from the zoomies blew some banners loose from the walls  and they came down floating down on the crowd and show cars.   

I’m gonna continue to search some of this out but regardless, this is fun stuff.

No worries Glenn.  I just thought I would ask in case it was just taking up space in the shop.   Thanks anyway.



Okay, here's a bit more of the story.   Glenn and Tommy, feel free to edit as needed.

Okay, I apologize in advance if this rambles a bit and I’m certain that the story will grow but here goes what I know at the moment.

I’ll start with what we’ve have known in the past.

From what I understand Glenn went to look at this boat in 1996.  The boat was in a warehouse and completely unrigged.  The aluminum was still in the boxes from having been anodized.  The paint was perfect as was the floor and upolstrey.  There was an all aluminum ZL1 Chev motor with injection setting alongside it and likely belonged to the boat.   

The guys that were selling it wanted $7500 minus motor and exhaust so he passed on it but kept his eye on it.

Fast forward to 10 years later where it came up for sale again and Glenn went to look at it.  Unfortunately, by that time, they had pushed it outside and the sun had done damage to the incredible paint and upholstery.  The boat was still unrigged.

Glenn bought the boat at that time and brought it home.  He documented what he had found and stored it.  Unfortunately at the time, he couldn’t put time and money into it so he decided to sell it.

In 2008 Tommy at JetBoatPerformance bought the boat and brought it into their capable hands.  Josh worked his magic assembling all the anodized rail kits and finished rigging the cav plate hardware.   They assembed the boat, installing a rebuilt pump, diverter, cables and made it a workable boat.  They had a blown BBC in it for a while and tried a variety of setups before electing to focus on the next project and putting the Sanger up for sale.

In March 2009 my son, Ian,  bought the boat and we had a great father and son trip south to pick it up as well as my new blower motor I was having Barry Obler at Obnoxious Racing Engines assemble for me.

We brought it home and Ian spent all his free time buffing and detailing the boat back.  The California sun had unfortunately done its damage to the paint but I gotta admit, Ian was able to bring back a lot of it’s luster. 
 
Looking at it closer we found so many details like pinstriping on the bottom of the boat, pinstriping inside the suction housing, braided trailer wire, murals, pinstriped and parquet floor and very faintly the sign on the dash that said “Prepared by Sano Don La Franchi”   

Looking at this boat I was certain it was different and may have some history so I started doing searches to the names on all the boat sites I could think of but unfortunately came up empty.  A number of folks mentioned that the name “UFO” sounded familiar but they couldn’t remember who had it.

The whole time in the back of my mind I kept thinking about when I was younger Jan and I would go to the car shows and see all the awesome hotrods (and yes, even vans) and in the shows there were often some bitchin boats in the show as well.  Given this I thought it might have had some time on the showroom floor so I started posting on all the hotrodders sites as well but alas, no luck.

Unfortunately, Ian, like so many was hit by the economy and was laid off of his job.  It was tough timing as the big Labor Day event was quickly approaching but he regrettably didn’t have much money to get a motor and finish the boat.   Soooooo, against my better judgment, I turned him loose in my shop and spare parts and was able to assemble a BBC and all the fixings to get the boat running.  A couple of our friends kicked in some spare parts as well and we’ll be forever grateful.   

He had a great time over the big gathering and though there were so many big dollar boats, Ian’s boat always had a crowd around it. The more you stare at this boat the more you realize just how different it is.

Upon returning from the big bash, Ian applied and was accepted to Central Washington University to make something of himself instead of ending up a flake like me.

Now, fast forward to over this last holiday weekend when he was home from college and decided to play a prank on me by installing my blower motor in his boat.  The look just blew me away and inspired me again to try to find the history of this incredible boat.

I had posted everywhere I could think of, Googled it, Bing’d it and searched anyway I could think of and could never find anything. The only lead we had  was “Prespared by Sano Don La Franchi”.

Just for grins I tried something I had never done, FaceBook. What are the odds of somebody like Don La Franchi being on FaceBook?
Well, low and behold there WAS a Don La Franchi on FaceBook and the area listed sounded about right. (San Francisco).

I sent him a private message mentioning my son buying a boat with a Don La Fanchi name on the dash and would he have been involved in it or did he have any tips he would be willing to share. 

His quick reply was “if this is about UFO II, call me at **********”

I was blown away that out of the blue I had finally found somebody that knew something about the boat and I shakingly called the number.   Unfortunately, we continued to play phone tag until……….one night as I was getting home from work I got a call. 

On a conference call was not only Don La Franchi but Rich Laguilo, the former owner of UFO II.

I knew I was in heaven when Rich asked if I knew “how famous that boat is?”………………


To be continued…

WOW!!!!

I just got off the phone with the original builders/owners of this boat and this boat has so much history I can't believe it.  All of it is fully documented and he's assembling a portfolio for Ian.

When I hung up with him I was so nervous I was shaking and Jan laughed at me cuz I opened two beers at the same time.   This is a REALLY special boat.

More to come..........john

Will do Glenn.   I can't wait.  Havent managed to connect but when he responded to my message with "if this is UFO II, call me" I had goosebumps.   He didnt even hesitate.

Could you help me and tell me about what year it was when you first saw this boat and what town/city that was?

Take care

NEWS FLASH!!!!

I've been able to track down the gentleman that built this boat!   We're trading voice mails but regardless, we'll soon be able to reconstruct the full history of this boat.  Too F'n cool!!!!

Here's an 1985 price sheet.  Post up some pictures of you boat and congrats!
 

  Love ya Dad!

You might like to watch this one Tommy!!  Taken with my Go Pro Hero Wide.    Ian

Any updates?  I'm diggin these Sanger rebuilds and need inspiration.