Terry Bass Boat History

Here's some info from a former manager:

My name is "JC" and I was a District Sales Manager for Delhi Mfg., makers of Terry Bass Boats from 1975 thru 1980.

"What happened to Delhi?":
In the last quarter of '77 we were the #2 bass boat company in the nation...second only to Forest Wood's Ranger Boats, made in Arkansas. To the best of my recollection, we were the only two companies with dealerships all over the U.S.

Things started going sour. We made a better boat than Ranger, and it cost more, but hardly any company was meeting sales objectives by mid-'78. In the summer of '78 Terry/Delhi management met with Dick Woolworth, head of the Woolworth's Department Stores and parent company to Terry/Delhi. Because our sales were booming nationally we needed more manufacturing facilities, and a bigger plant overall. Dick had come down to discuss the possibility of Woolworth's loaning some major bucks to it's boat company.

At the time, gas had gone up to .79 cents per gallon and predictions were it would go to a dollar or more. This is bad for boat retailers and manufacturers. Jimmy Carter had allowed prime interest rates to go to well above 13% to 14%. At one point it hit 16%, as I recall. When a manufacturer sells a load of boats to a dealer, the dealer borrows the money to pay off the loan on a short note. His interest is most commonly based on the prime rate that the government charges banks and lenders, plus another 6% to 8% (at the time). As you can see dealers were having to pay from 18% to 24% to the IRS for the "privilige of doing business". High interest rates plus the "high" cost of gas were combining to make the cost of a high end bass boat out of reach for the average angler like me. At that meeting in Hot Springs, Ark. I told Woolworth that if prime interest stayed up, and the banks continued forcing another whammy on retail customers by charging the highest interest rates on consumer loans in decades, that the industry was doomed, and I estimated Terry could survive another 2 years.
Also, IRS had taken away the people's tax deduction on interest for car and boat loans. As I recall, we closed up shop 22 months later. However, we continued manufacturing aluminum boats and put other company's names on them. For instance, Bass Tracker, Sears, and several others.

I left the company. It was a real shame, but 35% of America's boat mfg. companies went out of business over that 2 year period. When Terry/Delhi cut back it wiped out the little town of Delhi, La., pop. about 1700, many of which were employed at our plant.

Did Terry/Delhi go out of business, or what?
As mentioned, they did go out of business per-say. Woolworth's, the parent company, stopped the fiberglass line. For your info Woolworth's also owned a company called "Woodstream". They were/are the makers of Victor Mouse traps plus the world's largest line of fur and big animal traps sold world wide.

As for seeing hulls that looked like Terry's, this is quite possible or maybe even probable. Many smaller bass boat companies got into business by "splashing" (copying) another company's hull. This saved thousands of dollars in design and tooling and I never heard of anyone getting proscecuted for it. I know of at least 2 companies who splashed our hulls. If you take them to court they immediately file bankruptcy and are gone. Only to pop up later under another company name. The state of Louisiana is full of "garage" boat companies who make one at a time and are often without Coast Guard or BIA certification, OR manufacturer's liability insurance.

Our aluminum boats were the biggest sellers nationally and as I said earlier, their production was continued. We made aluminum boats for Bass Pro Shops, Bass Tracker, Sears, Montgomery Wards, and several other companies. Our aluminum boats were amongst the best "store chainline" boats ever built. The aluminum we used was thicker than anyone else's. As in our high end glass boats quality was our goal. In the glass boats we did things like put an .004 thick extra coat of clear gel to protect the paint and metal flake from UHV (fading), small scratches, and make the boat easier to clean and keep clean. We were very proud of our hatch and live well door hinges. If you noticed, they were chrome plated and held in place by bolts with self locking nuts. Ranger, and the rest used those cheap, stamped "piano" hinges that were hard to tighten and harder to replace. We used a better grade of pumps in our live wells and bilges, and much more. We even sprayed over the exposed fiberglass in the fuel compartment with clear gel.

Your ABF, probably a '76 model had the strongest hull in the business. It was also the fastest though the Coast Guard limited it to about 120hp, as I recall. My '76 ABF demo sported a 115 horse Evilrude that had been reworked by Gene Wallentiny. I was putting out somewhere around 180 hp and I couldn't tear the transom out of it, and I tried!

In '75 we hired Gar Wood Jr. as our hull designer. Gar's dad worked with England's Sir Malcom Campbell on the "Bluebird" which held the world's water speed record for quite some time. Gar did a magnificent job on all his boats, but the '76 ABF was the strongest, heaviest, yet fastest given the proper horsepower that it was designed for. To our chagrin the Coast Guard wouldn't let us hang a bigger engine simply because of their length and width formula for determining maximum "safe" horsepower. But, in the 9 months I drove that demo (with the tricked 115 for show) it was never outrun. I sold a lot of boats in California when word got out that the ABF had outrun Ranger's 17'5" pad boat equipped with the then new 200hp Evilrude. It even ran away and hid from Monark's little 15' tunnel hull with a 150 Merc on it.

I used to customize Evinrude's SST propellers by reforming the blades over a trailer ball with a hammer and a lot of patience, giving them a deeper cup along the spine and tips of the blades. These props were usually good for another 5mph or so. I got the idea from my good friend Woody Everett who was a Ranger dealer in Phoenix. He had retired and began playing with boats when he sold his company and invention...the Everett Ditch Witch. He was an old cowboy type, sharp as a razor, and humble as could be. You'd never know he had 2 cents to rub together...one of the last of a dying breed of men and a true friend.

Any brochures, manuals, pictures remaining?
There may be...somewhere, but I have none. A while back I ran across a '77 brochure in an old briefcase. '77 was the year we switched to measuring with the metric system. The 17 1/2' boat was named the "5.3" meter...the high performance 15 1/2' became the "4.7" meter boat. These were all called "Pad Boats". The term was derived from the fact that if properly powered, propped, engine height set correctly, and the weight distributed as far aft as possible, at full speed the boat would rise from the water and actually ride on the pad which was a small area midline at the transom, appx. 14" or so wide, and depending on the setup only the rear couple of feet of the pad remained in the water. As you can imagine this eleminated a bunch of drag in the water because very little boat was in the water. The results were some awsome speeds! The ABF demo I told you about would run between 65 and 70 mph at about 500' above sea level, which is another speed variable.

In '78 we introduced the 6.2 meter boat (almost 21'). To me this was the epitome of bass boats. It sounds too big, but it's size never caused me a problem. It wasn't as fast as the smaller pad boats but with an Evinrude 225 it would hit about 62mph with one of my customized SST props. But it was so comfortable and dry. A great boat for lakes Powell or Mead...or for going after yellow tail near San Diego. It would take big water like a cork.

 

Great condition classic. I had one in the late 80’s that was a front seat stick steer, I believe it had a 50hp Johnson on it. Very stable boat.