My Falls Flyer Story I was checking out a local bargain news website for interesting boats a couple years ago when I spotted an ad for a 1957 Thunderhawk in a town about an hour from me. The price was $100. I called the guy and he said he got the boat from a yard sale in Pennsylvania and didn’t know what it was but after searching the Internet, found a photo of the boat. He then went to the CT DMV and was able to get a new title written (I’m still not sure how he managed to do that). I arranged to meet him and see the boat, which was upside down in the snow in his backyard. It definately wasn’t a Thunderhawk, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Even so, I handed him the $100 because I thought it was a cool boat and worth at least that much. I also scanned the Internet for information and discovered that he had mistakenly identified the boat because he had looked at the wrong caption on a site listing several of Larson’s models. The boat was a Falls Flyer (probably an early ’59 or even a late ‘58...Barnacle Brad says it has the "early style" glo-pole bases), not a Thunderhawk (Jr. or Sr.). The hull was stripped bare but he did have some of the trim in a bucket in the garage and we had to go to his mother’s house to find two pieces of a broken windshield, but most importantly, the glovebox. Since I dragged it home I’ve transferred it to a 1959 (?) Holesclaw trailer which is perfect for the boat and added a 1959 (I think) dockbuster 600 Merc that I bought on a trip to Quebec...a motor that was claimed to have never been on any boat other than a Falls Flyer (Brad and I would still like to get that boat into the states...it actually belongs to him but may be at the bottom of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the victim of an alligator attack...it’s a long story). And that’s as far as I’ve come with it so far. It still needs complete restoration and I’ve made some new parts for it (tail light lenses, glo-pole tops and a new plastic dash center section) and have picked up some parts from Ebay like a speedo and the correct Attwood steering wheel. But still lots of work to do. My good buddy Brad has allowed me to use the rare tailfin covers from his Flyer to make sand molds and begin casting new ones for mine. I’ve also recorded all the trim specs from his boat so I can eventually get matching aluminum pieces together to complete the restoration. I guess one of the cool things about the boat is that it has a very unusual color combination (under the chaulky white house paint). Paul Larson would allow cutomers to choose custom color combinations from his gel coat colors (although, of course, most people bought their boats from dealer stock in the standard colors, custom colors, I assume, being an additional charge and wait). White and red was a popular standard combination, featuring white topsides, red side stripes and white and red stripped hull “lapstrakes”, but this boat was manufactured with Desert Sand and red colors instead, Desert Sand being a beige color and available on other Larson models but not listed as available for the Falls Flyers.