1970 Separator

Hi Brit,

Don't know how much lurking you've done around this site or if you just found us. There are a few members with Separators here, but as you can imagine, not too many. Mike Thrower has one down in SC, and Jeff Connors in MI(?) (connorsons) has three or four in various states of restoration. Right now he is working on restoring an I/O version. He has a complete v-drive in very good condition and one or two other v-drives waiting on restoration. I know of one of his, personally, because one member told me about finding it in the Maine woods. I went to check it out and was seriously thinking about it but then decided to let Jeff have it. There was one other barn find separator a few years ago. The guy was going to redo it, but quickly lost interest and we never heard from him or about the boat again. He was seriously out of line with his asking price ($12,000) Can't really help you with the value. Jeff could. I know the one in maine was a complete redo so that was under a grand. The one he got from Florida that was redone,I dont recall what he paid. There is a market for them. Some folks dont care for them, but those that do, (like me) really like them. They are not regarded as great ski boats, because they are a little slow out of the hole and the rear engine causes a larger wake, but they are still cool boats. If I had to guess the value of a 70 separator that needs v-drive work and an interior, I might say around 5-ish,000, but that is just a guess on my part, others with more knowledge may correct me. The rest of the condition, hull, motor, trailer would affect that. There is an absolutely spotless, albiet unoriginal bright yellow painted, Torino in Maine for $9,500 which I think in quite optimistic, tho a separator might have a slight primium over the torino due to the unique bat boat windshields. First rule around here, we love pics, if you could post some, that would be great. What part of the country are you in?

Welcome to CCF. You found the best place to have this discussion.   

Hi, thanks for your reply. I haven't done much looking around the site, knew about it because my husband found it some time ago. Yes, you are quite right I should post pics, I have some fab ones of Dave driving it. We are in St Louis and used to take the bat boat to Table Rock Lake. We're not looking to win the lottery if we sell the boat, but do want to be educated sellers.

Posting pics:

Either directly from your hard drive using these instructions:

from hard drive

Or from photobucket, using these:

photobucket

i would keep it too. you will never be able to replace that one

very cool boat! love the pictures!

nautique frk wrote: Is yours the original gel coat color ?

I am guessing so, as it is a twin to the very sad one in Maine that Jeff picked up. (that I now have second thoughts about letting go)   

Jeff's Maine Boat

Very nice!!

The boat is the Holman/Moody version and it does have the original gel paint. Thanks to everyone for the kind comments about our bat-boat. Now we have some thinking to do!!

cue the Godfather...

I don't like blue boats or H&M's I vote to keep it.

I used to take care of your boat in the mid to late '70's.

Unless there are two identical Baby Blue Bat Boats in MO.

M3Fan wrote: You may send a couple of the guys on this board to the cardiac unit with these pics.

Only because they are thinking how much dough they put into their boats to get them to perform like that and they still won't, and I am guessing this one is doing it straight from the factory. Brit hasn't mentioned top speed, and I realize it would probably be a speedo number, but I'd still be curious.

It was on Wilson Lake. It was in the woodsfor at least a few years.

I believe the same guy owned the Mustang. If you drove down the dirt road next to where the Mustang was parked, the Torino was parked not even 100 yards away in the woods. That Mustang was parked next to the road for at least 2 years. I've just been getting acquainted with that area in the past few years. Lots of little lakes and old boats in the yards.