50's cowls

[tjandrews]

This is a photo of my boats docked at a fishing camp on the St. Lawrence River. The motor on the left is a '56 15HP Johnson, and the one on the right is a '58 10HP Evinrude. What strikes me is that to look at them, they look to be the same size. Did OMC use the same basic cowl for both sizes back then?

 

[Chinewalker]

No. I suspect if you put the cowls side by side, you'd see that the 15hp cowling is actually a little bigger than the 10. They made different cowling castings for each size motor back then, within a model year. Exceptions were, the 15 and 18 cowlings are more or less the same, as were the 25/30/35 cowlings. Most changes within those classes were cosmetic, rather than overall sizes.