the first "THOR"

[HTV Boats]

Interesting video. Karl Kiekhaefer took over Thor outboards then built SeaKing for MonkeyWards before starting Mercury.

Mic

 

[eric stockon]

way cool, i ended up watching all of them

 

[Mark Poole ModVP]

The story of Carl is quite amazing. Never intended to build outboards. Was going to build magnetic seperators for the farm industry. Inherited a big bunch of defective outboards with his first location. Decided to correct what was wrong with them and the rest is history.

 

[Ronald van Essen]

very interesting video....

 

[Carl Van Houten]

Yea...I love the old Thor stuff. Carl Kiekhaefer was quite the designer. He had the perfect knowledge background for magnetic coil design that the old Thor outboards so desperately needed to improve their weak spark problems and this improvement combined with selecting the right carb, put the old Thor in a new class of dependability. After he fixed the ill starting returned engines from Montgomery Wards that had put Thorwald Hansen out of bussiness, Carl's first 4 outboard products in 1939 (before he changed his product name to Mercury) were mostly an upgraded Thor product line.

People could see that if Carl could fix all the problems that the little single cylinder Thor had, then he was in his element. The first engines he rebuilt had some minor adjustments made to the mixer valve that greatly improved the fuel delivery at start up. Next he would go on the spruce up the single cylinder Thor brand engine by designing a very nice looking fuel tank and lower pan. This was actually Carl's first shot at outboard design and he called this first version the Thor Streamliner. He loaded this engine with the very dependable MS 850-1b Tillison carb that combined the ability to choke the engine at startup and had adjustable high and low speed fuel needle valves and a hotter sparking coil made a quick starting & dependable engine out of the little row boat engine. Even though it looked good for the time, the Streamliner was quite hokey looking compared to the fully finished K1 that came out the following spring of 1940 sporting the new cast aluminum towers and gear case plus the new name MERCURY. I have that engine too...

The engines he took to the 1939 outboard show (still under the Thor name) were; The opposed twin, and the two in-line engines that he renamed Alternante -2 and Alternante -3. NOTE: There were only 100 Alt-2's manufactured and about 20 of the Alt 3's manufactured during the year of 1939.(The Alt-3 was the first inline 3 cylinder outboard engine ever to be manufactured) and also in the lineup was Carl's first project engine the "Thor Streamliner". Carl had taken the little single cylinder Thor single and dressed it up to look the part. It was debuted at the1939 show but wasn't a heavy seller. This engine was Carl's first go at outboard engine design and is known by collectors as the "Mercury's story engine" because it was the first outboard to carry the Kiekhaefer name and is actually the engine that kicked off his outboard business.

There were only 473 Thor Streamliners made. After searching for almost 20 years, I am lucky enough to have two of them. One of them I am restoring and the other I am posting a picture of. The Thor Streamliner is one of my favorite engines of my collection. I also have the very first Thor outboard model. It is an early 1935 model and was only manufactured for 6 months in this initial configuration. These are rare as well and it being the first engine Thor manufactured, I like it a lot too. If it were not for these little row boat engines, Mercury outboards would probably never have come to be.

If you have a THOR outboard engine, please let me know because you may have one of the rare models and anyone that would like information about these engines can contact me at: [email protected]

-Carl

 

[HTV Boats]

Very cool Carl, so is there a tribute to Carl K in the use of the "Thor" nameplate?

Mic

 

[RonShaw]

Very cool Carl, so is there a tribute to Carl K in the use of the "Thor" nameplate?

Mic

Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a winner!!!! Yep Mic, Carl loves his old THORS and all of the history surrounding them.

Here is one I found for him in a restaurant in NC. Now if I could just get them to agree to sell it!!!....lol

 

[Carl Van Houten]

Yea Ron... you need to go ahead and get that one for me. Christmas is coming up you know.

 

[Doug Smock]

Wow, and I thought those old 1955 & 57 Seahorses I had were something. Cool stuff fellas!

 

[Carl Van Houten]

Very cool Carl, so is there a tribute to Carl K in the use of the "Thor" nameplate?

Mic

Sorry for the delay Mic. ... Yes, the Thor name was given to my boat because it builds up so strong.



-Carl

 

[Carl Van Houten]

Very cool Carl, so is there a tribute to Carl K in the use of the "Thor" nameplate?

Mic

Kiekhaefer was a natural at problem solving and pushed the outboard platform way ahead of its time with his new ideas. Carl came here a couple of times to a Mercury dealership in Montgomery that was owned by a friend of my dads named Junkie Arnold. Outboard racing here on the lake I live on was big in the 50's and 60's. When the Konig engine came along, it changed everything. It was a lot like when the O/S 3.5cc outboard came along and blew away the K&B.

-Carl