Team Archer Marine Freaky Fast 32 Speedster To Debut At Lake of the Ozarks Shootout
Visitors to the Shootout On the Strip Street Party on August 23 at the upcoming Lake of the Ozarks Shootout will see an almost endless array of exotic high-performance boats. One that they should keep an eye out for is the 32 Speedster, Freaky Fast, that will be making its first public appearance. Jimmy John Liautaud, the owner of the 32-foot V-bottom, is taking delivery of his one-of-a-kind 32-foot Speedster V-bottom at the 35th annual event in Central Missouri.
So far, the 32-footer built by the famed Southern California-based Team Archer Marine shop and powered by Mercury Racing 565 engines reportedly has reached 104 mph—but it looks plenty fast just sitting still. Photos courtesy Team Archer Marine.
The boat is a 32 Speedster built by Team Archer Marine of Costa Mesa, Calif. In 2020, Liautaud, the founder of the Jimmy John’s chain of sandwich shops, accompanied a friend during a trip to Dan MacNamara’s go-fast boat shop. His friend was there to take delivery of a restored 43-foot Scarab Poker Run Edition called Smokin’ Joe.
“He saw my 32 Speedster, and said, ‘I want one of those, but I want a wraparound windshield,’” MacNamara recalled during a telephone interview this afternoon.
Team Archer Marine laid up the hull with a vacuum-bagged laminate that consisted of balsa and foam cores and the deck is carbon-fiber. The boat was ordered just as the COVID-19 Pandemic hit and it went to Visual Imagination in Peculiar, Mo., where owner Mark Morris worked with the owner on the graphic design. The paint shop had the boat for more than a year getting all the details right.
“Mark did a beautiful job,” said MacNamara. “The fades in the silver are perfect.”
When he got the boat back for rigging, the twin Mercury Racing 565s were installed in a full-stagger. They are linked to Bravo XR drives with ITS boxes.
Perhaps the most challenging request for MacNamara was the wraparound windshield because his original deck had old-school side-by-side quarter canopies. Aircraft Windshield Company in Los Alamitos, Calif., created a two-part mold for the custom application. The interior consists of four bucket seats and KMG interiors in San Diego took care of providing them.
When it came to rigging, MacNamara said that the pandemic didn’t help things, explaining, “We just had issue after issue.” The custom CMI headers were delayed and the owner wanted everything finished in black.
“The header system and tailpipes are all painted satin black,” said MacNamara. “The cleats are blacked out, the lighting is blacked out. I even painted the sea strainer and the engine-compartment-light bezel black. The only stainless on the boat are the thru-hull dumps and the fender clips.”
Mark Morris of Visual Imagination in Peculiar, Mo., handled the boat’s striking graphics.
On the Livorsi gauges, Liautaud wanted yellow pointers. Livorsi Marine doesn’t offer that color, so Mike Livorsi sent MacNamara the pointers he needed. “I mounted all the pointers on toothpicks and painted them yellow and clear-coated them and sent them back,” said MacNamara. “He made us custom gauges.”
The boat rides on a custom aluminum trailer Pacific Trailer with extra-large frame rails and MacNamara says it tows smoothly. To answer the big question, the boat ran 104 mph with the rev limiters on the 565s kicking in with the 32-inch-pitch Maximus five-blade props. MacNamara is hoping to find a set of 34-inch wheels he can run when the boat competes in the shootout.
If he finds a pair, he’s hoping the boat will be freaky fast.
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