Anything But Quiet At Visual Imagination

On my way to the Lake of the Ozarks for a dinner celebration tonight and back in the air early tomorrow morning out of Kansas City, Mo., I crash in my favorite Peculiar place last night. For those of you who might not know it, Peculiar, Mo., is the home of the Visual Imagination design and paint shop. Owner/founder Mark Morris, his wife, Laura, and an ever-evolving herd of cats and shelties live a few hundred yards from the paint facility. And they graciously put me up when I’m in town.

The next MTI 440X demo catamaran is in paint at Visual Imagination.

Having been here twice this year, I almost didn’t recognize the paint operation. First off, the center space between the area prep booth and the paint booth was empty. Two completed boats had been picked up yesterday, so that space was momentarily open.

“We just shipped off an MTI 440X cat and a 38-foot Renegade center console,” Morris explained. “The Renegade will be in the Shootout On The Strip street party tomorrow night.

“We have an MTI-V 50 center console, an MTI-V 42 center console and a Skater 438 coming—all this month,” he added.

A rare amount of empty space at the famed paint shop—but one that won’t stay empty long.

A 50-foot Nor-Tech center console filled the prep area—and I mean filled. The still all-white 50-footer, powered by five Mercury Racing 500R outboard engines, on the Visual Imagination paint-trailer looked huge.

“The owner wants long, clean lines,” said Morris. “He doesn’t want everything ‘cut up.’

This 50-foot Nor-Tech will be dressed in long, clean lines by Morris and his crew.

Next door in the paint booth, a new MTI 440X catamaran in early form took center stage. The 44-footer also looked immense. The cat will be MTI vice-president Taylor Scism’s demo boat.

“One really cool thing about that one?” said Morris. “We created a color called ‘Taylor Scism blue.’ It’s a candy blue done in three layers—base, pearl and then the blue. It’s going to be really cool.”

Another look at MTI’s latest 44-footer, which will soon be painted “Taylor Scism blue.”

Asked how he will find time to make it to the Shootout this week, Morris, who has been training two staffers to use the CNC cutters upstairs in the company’s new design room, laughed.

“I’m just going to go—I have to be there,” he said, then chuckled again. “And I’m going to do the poker run on Friday with a couple of my clients. That should be fun.”