Motown Missile - Page 18

The Marlin Marine Glass Slipper was, in my view, one of the five best boats of it's day in the Fiberglas outboard class. The styling was first rate and the execution top notch. I was very fortunate to have met Ervin Kiersey, who modestly bills himself only as one of the three founders of the company, but who I quickly eame to realize was the spearhead of the whole project. I learned a great deal from him about the boats of the period.

As nearly as Ervin can recall, there were only about 20 Glass Slippers built in total, 14 of the 1958 models shown here, and just 6 in '59. My red one at the bottom of the page is one of only three '58s known. These had well detailed, cast aluminum "Jet Air Intakes" to feed the Faux Turbines, which are easily imagined to reside within the hull, due to it's rounded and sculptured form. At the stern, well proportioned jet exhausts, no doubt afterburner equipped, exit the hull! It is hard not to revisit the wonder and excitement of the era when looking at these special boats.

The top image is taken from the brochure. The next one is a photograph of the first production model built, displayed at a boat show in Detroit, the city from which I purchased mine. Below that is a green '58 model displaying it's alter ego. Bottom left is another image from the brochure, showing detail of the rear.

The boats two headlights were functional and led to a comment from a Coast Guard official that Ervin was to cease building boats with headlights at once, "We don't want to see that thing out on the water" were his approximate words spoken at a trade show. This led Ervin to carefully consider design changes for the following years refinement of this boat, in 1959 it would no longer have two headlights......