Yesterday we looked at one half of a boat and motor combination (the boat) that was inspired by a Shell Lake Boat and Martin Motor I saw on display at the annual Antique Outboard Motor Club Nationals show in Tomahawk, Wisconsin. Today, in part 2 – Martin Motor and Shell Lake Boat (I reversed the order, motor first, for this story) – we’ll look at the history of the Martin Motor Company. The Martin “45” that was on the wood and canvas Shell Lake boat at the event was expertly restored and was a real “looker.” I didn’t know a lot about Martin Motors when I started researching the company, other than that they were an old Wisconsin company and that they had a couple of memorable, beautifully illustrated ads. The introductory image above shows one awesome print advertisement from 1948. First let’s take a look at that Martin Motor and Shell Lake Boat (images below).
![Placard at front of boat display: 1948 Shell Lake Snipe Guide Boat with 1948 [?] Martin 45, 4.5 hp outboard motor.](https://s3.amazonaws.com/bass-archives.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/13172526/Martin-45-8-a.jpeg)
The story of the Martin Motors company is also the story of George W. Martin, the man who invented the Martin outboard motor. Martin Motors officially began manufacturing and selling motors in 1946. In my research I learned that George Martin left the company in 1949, and while the company carried on for a few years without him at the helm, it didn’t last long, maybe four or five years, before closing for good. As a company Martin Motors produced outboard engines from 1946 to 1954. That’s only eight years. And yet Martin Motors had a significant impact on the outboard boating industry that is still felt today. The Martin name is practically synonymous with innovation, good design, durability and reliability in outboard motors. Martin Motors are highly sought and valued by collectors of vintage motors today, as well as by folks who want to actually use them on the water. They were very popular during and after their production run.
George William Martin was born on August 6, 1906, in Fulton, Indiana. He was an engineer with a love for both the 2-cycle engine and boat and car racing. His passions led him to a highly successful racing career on the water, as well as the ability to constantly improve the machines he used to place in the money at those races. He held dozens of patents for innovative designs and improvements for the engines and boats he raced. He worked in various capacities for different companies in the industry until November, 1943, when he moved to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to present his ideas for a new outboard motor design and production to officials at the National Pressure Cooker Company (NPCC). Martin courted the NPCC ostensibly because of their expertise with aluminum design and production. An April 9, 1946, story in The Eau Claire Leader talked about Martin’s 1943 presentation to the NPCC while discussing the company’s impending official opening and production goals. Under the heading Production to Start Soon, the Leader reported:
Between 150 and 200 persons will be employed when production gets into full swing, Martin said, with a normal daily output of 200 units which can be doubled by a night shift. At present, he said, output has been held up by lack of three small essential parts manufactured outside. However, a supply has been promised for next week. Martin said it is expected that production will start within a week or ten days.
Then the article gets really interesting:
Referring briefly to his ten-years of experience in professional outboard racing, Martin said he was impressed by the lack of certain desirable features not contained in any motor manufactured.
Special Features
Discussing the Martin Motors product the speaker pointed to special features, designed, he said, as definite improvements over any outboard motor now being manufactured. These include greater horsepower per pound of weight, compared with the product of other prominent manufacturers, greater flexibility enabling a speed of less than one mile an hour up to 15 miles an hour, an attached filler cap which cannot get lost, adjustments to keep the propellor shaft vertical to the surface of the water, adjustment whereby the motor can be swung horizontally and turned inboard for repairs or clearing away of vegetation in the propellor, the entire unit suspended in rubber for less vibration and reduction of noise in operation, a mechanical starter, which works every time, hot or cold, centralized controls, all inboard and easy of access, a positive water cooling system and streamlined design both below and above water.
Many of these are patented while patents are pending on others, Martin explained, insuring their use to the local firm for a considerable period of time.
It’s interesting that this Leader article didn’t focus on Martin’s most often cited innovation, although it was alluded to. However, the January 20, 1946, edition of the Eau Claire Sunday Leader did highlight this innovation, when it reported,
Pointed to as the outstanding feature of the Martin outboard motor as it will be produced here is the incorporation for the first time in two-cycle outboard engine design, of patented mechanically controlled poppet valves comparable to the same kind of fuel control used in automotive and aircraft angines. This results, it is claimed, in virtually instant starting in all weather.
Martin admitted that he didn’t invent the poppet valve and that it had been in use for quite a number of years. However, he managed to incorporate the valve in a two-cycle engine, which was a new innovation, and he secured patents for that use. He claimed that by the late 1930s he had built several engines using the valve and had run enough tests with it to emphatically declare that the design was sound and resulted in “exceptionally good idle, unusually good horsepower, and good starting under adverse conditions.” But WWII stalled production of his outboard motors with the poppet valve, and he had to wait until the war began to wind down before he could again focus on producing engines for the market.
Martin addressed the issues he overcame as a speedboat racer, and he wanted to build a reliable, lightweight, affordable, simple to operate motor for the average angler and boating enthusiast. The National Pressure Cooker Company had the financing, workforce, equipment and location to make this happen. NPCC leased Martin’s patented technologies and Martin received royalties for their manufacture, as well as a position as General Manager of Martin Motors. Concerning pricing to the public, the April 9, 1946, Leader offered an interesting and revealing breakdown of how the motors compared to those of other manufacturers. The Martin “60” was the first motor produced by Martin Motors and it priced out at $22.50 per horsepower, which “compared with $28.50 for one firm’s output and $29 for that of another.” Martin also “stressed the fact that there is now no motor on the market which has the range of operation as to speed, control, and horsepower contained in the Martin product.”
As stated earlier, Martin Motors started production with the Martin “60” model, which came in at 43 pounds and 7.2 horsepower. The Martin “40” followed at 35½ pounds and 4½ horsepower. The lightweight (29½ pounds) model “20” boasted 2⅓ horsepower. Other Martin engines followed, including the “45” (a restyled “40”) in 1951 (the motor in our AOMCI photos above). The “45” had basically the same specs as the “40” at 4½ horsepower. Martin Motors ultimately manufactured eleven different models.
According to a brief history of the Martin company found on the Discount Marine Parts website, in 1952 George Martin was hired by the Scott-Atwater Outboard Motor Company as their Chief Engineer (see my story Antique Outboard Motor Club in Tomahawk for a look at and brief discussion of the Scott-Atwater company). And in 1953 Martin canceled the licensing agreement he had with NPCC for reasons of non-payment. NPCC shut down the Martin Motors division a year later, in 1954.
I read somewhere that George Martin began in the boating industry as a stock boy, and through work ethic, an aptitude for things mechanical, and force of personality, he continued to move up through the ranks until he was running his own company. He was named one of the top ten mechanical engineers in the country in the early 1950s.
Of interest are a few more bits of Martin Motors history, one being the origin of the character of “Marty,” the fellow whose face appeared on the back of Martin outboard motors, and on Martin publications and other paraphernalia. His story is explained in the image below, which is a still-shot from a video taken by Josh Lierman of an 2024 exhibition of Martin memorabilia and motors put on by the Chippewa Valley Museum in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Following the image of Marty is a still-shot from the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds. It shows the star of the movie, Tippi Hedron, in a boat with her hand on the throttle of what most Martin afficianados claim is a Martin outboard motor. The profile and design of the motor sure look like a Martin, even though the name has been scrubbed from the side. In another picture of this motor, the big letter “M” that appeared on early engine designs (pre-“Marty”) is visible. Thirdly, there follows an image of the Martin Messenger, a newspaper or newsletter put out by Martin Motors to promote their motors. Note the image of Marty in the header.
George Martin retired and moved to Pompano Beach, Florida, with his wife Helen and three daughters, Jean, Kay, and Mary. While in Florida George got involved in stock car racing at Daytona and worked as a consulting engineer for a successful racing team. Helen passed away in 1987, and the following year George visited the Charlotte Motor Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he decided that he had another speed record left in him. So in January of 1989, at nearly 83 years of age, Martin climbed into a 1988 Mazda RX7 turbo-charged car and recorded five laps at over 100 mph, with his best lap at over 115 mph, officially at just under 112 mph. He was named “racer of the week” by Motorweek Illustrated. Of his speed Martin said “I saved some. I always save a little. I’m sure I could turn the track at 120 mph without any trouble. I wish somebody would challenge me tomorrow. But that wasn’t bad for an 82-year-old senior citizen on the Charlotte Speedway.”
Martin remarried (Mary Jane) and moved back to the Midwest, settling in Brighton, Michigan. He died in Michigan on Dec. 28, 2004, at the age of 98. George Martin is buried next to his wife Helen in Pompano Beach, Florida.
Most BFA pieces require a lot of reading (old newspapers, different online sources, obituaries, public documents and other papers) but I want to thank the Facebook group “Martin outboard fun page” and members Ronald Lietha and Josh Lierman especially. These guys don’t know it but I read as many of their posts as I could. They’re real Martin experts, and you can see from some of the images in this story that they were also a great source in that regard as well.
