CC models

Welcome, John.

The best place to get acquainted with the various models is in the reference section. Lots of good reading and pictures.

To try to answer your question somewhat succinctly, the differences in models, like you said, is primarily hull style. Mustang, and all its relatives, early American Skier, Skier, Ski Tique, are all 16 footers. Fun, powerful little boats. In their day, adequate ski machines, but small and not great pulls by todays standards, or even 1980s or 1990s standards. Mustangs evovled a bit and out of the bunch were a little plusher than the others. I think some even came without ski pylons, suggesting they were more runabouts than ski boats.

Nautique, obviously the ski machine flagship. 18-ish feet back in that era and tuned to the best of the day for skiing.

Your Barracuda, 17 feet, kind of a double duty boat, I think, I believe, despite the same flat bottom, it had a bit more freeboard (I could be wrong about that) and possibly a deeper V stem, making it a little bit smoother, drier ride. Like the mustang, as mentioned above, I think it was designed as more a dual purpose ski boat/runabout (although the "legendary" Al Tyll Skier was based on a Barracuda hull.)

So, thats what I know in a nut shell. As I said, look at the brochures, there are a ton of other models in the 60s and 70s all tweaked to cater to one preference or another.