Help please to identify an unusal speed boat

I have acquired a unusal speed boat, anyone have a clue as to its make and model.


boat3 by tielkeeper, on Flickr


boat2 by tielkeeper, on Flickr


boat1 by tielkeeper, on Flickr

 

That looks I lot like my first speedboat. I bought it around 1965 with a Johnson Seahorse engine, later replaced by a 4 cylinder Merc.
If I remember well the brand name was Vega, built in Spain or Italy.

 

I aint never seen nothing like that. Gotta be American.

 

Typical.

 

That bought back some memories ,I had the moulds for that boat in the early 1960's it was the first boat I ever made in GRP. I think the moulds may have been pirated from an American boat called a Glaspar or similar and may have been imported by Donald Healey ,who may have been denied a licence to produce them ,but that was all heresay There were two very similar English boats called thunderball and thunderski if my memory serves me correctly, but I seem to remember the sponsons were slightly different. I only produced a handful of boats ,and all mine were black.Production was labour intensive ,fitting the sponson uppers and getting every thing to line up and look professional was difficult,but it was a very striking looking boat for it's time,

 

Just took a trip down memory lane .I was right about the American origin ,so was Frosty. It was Glaspar who appear to have patented this design .It would appear that my moulds were in a job lot from Healey Marine ,who marketed it as the HealeySprite ,same name as their small sports car. With these moulds came a Healey 707 jetboat with a Ford Zephyr straight six engine and a dowty turbojet ,the first jetboat I ever saw, but certainly not the last. The Thunderball and Thunderski versions I mentioned were produced by Interglass Marine and as I said had very slight differences. There were other variations in Europe.If you search Classic Motor Boat Magazine on line using some of the former as keywords you may be able to identify your version. But to paraphrase Henry Ford "if it ain't black it's not one of mine"

 

Thanks for the info Anthony, time to search