TOPIC: Great Lakes Boat Div of John Sterling Corp.

John Sterling Corporation of Richmond, Illinois built the TRAILCAR brand of boat trailers in the 1960s and 1970s. Trailcar trailers had been made by Dunbar Kapple, Inc. at Quincy, IL earlier.

I just found an aritlce in the January 1963 issue of BOATING INDUSTRY magazine that shocked me. It indicated that John Sterling Corpoarion had a division called "Great Lakes Boats" that made boats.

They had 16 and 19 footers. It looks like they may be wooden lapstrake hulls. There is no mention of hull material in the clipping altho it does mention white oak frames.

Has anyone ever heard of this boat? Did John Sterling Corp. make these boats? Or did they have the boats built by some other firm and badge them as "Great Lakes Boats?"

How long were they in the boat business?

An inquiring mind wants to know!

Andreas

Both of the links are listed as Great Lakes Boat Co. But I don't think these are the one you are looking for. One does wood and the other appears to be fiberglass.

www.greatlakesboatco.com/
www.greatwoodboats.com/

thompsonboat wrote:

John Sterling Corporation of Richmond, Illinois built the TRAILCAR brand of boat trailers in the 1960s and 1970s. Trailcar trailers had been made by Dunbar Kapple, Inc. at Quincy, IL earlier.

I just found an aritlce in the January 1963 issue of BOATING INDUSTRY magazine that shocked me. It indicated that John Sterling Corpoarion had a division called "Great Lakes Boats" that made boats.

They had 16 and 19 footers. It looks like they may be wooden lapstrake hulls. There is no mention of hull material in the clipping altho it does mention white oak frames.

Has anyone ever heard of this boat? Did John Sterling Corp. make these boats? Or did they have the boats built by some other firm and badge them as "Great Lakes Boats?"

Andreas

I've never heard of them, but I can't believe that AJ "the guru of all things wood" isn't familiar either. Obviously, they weren't a big player.

jtw37 wrote:

Both of the links are listed as Great Lakes Boat Co. But I don't think these are the one you are looking for. One does wood and the other appears to be fiberglass.

www.greatlakesboatco.com/
www.greatwoodboats.com/

The first one is a boat dealer - probably nothing to do with the John Sterling Corp. or boat manufacturing.

The other is a current builder of wooden boats, so I will assume no relation to my quest.

Thanks for the response.

Yup Jim, I am sure they were a short lived small player.

Andreas

Andreas, Could I get a copy of your 64 Trailcar brochure? I have one under my Custom Craft. Thanks

Thanks for all the comments.

I scanned and submitted to the Classic Library the 1964 Trailcar boat trailer brochure.

I enjoy sharing my materials with everyone. Wish more folks would do the same. To scan and manipulate, save to my computer and then save to photobucket and submit to the Classic Library the three Trailcar brochures I have took about 2 hours of time. It is an extremely tedious and time consuming task.

I hope everyone realizes what it takes to make this website so great.

Andreas

I hope everyone realizes what it takes to make this website so great.

I do, (or at least have an idea and think I do), and would like to thank you and the others who devote so much time and effort to keep it running and growing. I may not read every post to the library, but I DO notice that this happens almost constantly. I don't know where you find all the literature and different things you post, but you are a major factor in the volumes of information available here.

Thank You Andreas!

And a heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who helps with FG, we DO appreciate this resource.