Batboat Rebuild: Seat Mystery Solved Part 2

The 1966 Glastron fiberglass boat catalog that I mentioned here three weeks ago came in the mail a while back. (I paid $13.89 for mine and another recently sold for $26, he he he.)

The pointed seat design shown in a '66 Jetflite V-143 Super Sport appears, from the back, to be a closer match for the ones used in the original Batboat than the '67 Jetflite V-143 mentioned in another blog post.

'66 Jetflite V-143 Super Sport

1966 Batboat

'67 Jetflite V-143 Super Sport

It looks like when it comes to having my own seats made I'll need to get hold of one of those and interpolate the dimensions of the Batboat's to base a new pattern on.

The Jetflites are the only boats built by Glastron with those pointed, turned up seating and are unique to that model.

Catalogs show Jetflite hulls had the seat bases molded into the deck from 1965 to 1970. From '66 to 69 pointed seats were used but not in 1970. The model was discontinued 1971.


The Batboat's seats were specially made and upholstered in glitter blue vinyl, as shown above. This is one of the scant close up glimpses of the original seat. It doesn't get much better than this, sadly.

The 1966 Jetflite V-143 Super Sport

The '66 catalog also shows the same type of metallic blue steering wheel used in the original Batboat.

As a side note, the model Glastron based the Batboat on is on the '66 catalog cover; Dark Jade Crestflite Stern Drive V-174 Super Sport. According to the back page specifications, it was only available as Dark Jade and White in 1966 but the photos show blue, also shown below.