The item pictured is the remains of a Johnson Tilting Stern Drive marketed in the early 1930’s. It was a bold venture into the inboard marine designs back then and wasn’t successful. Johnson perfected the design from others that had come before. It was steerable with prop thrust instead of previous rudder designs, and would kick up in the even you hit something. The unit would mate with a suitable inboard engine and in the catalog Johnson had a formula for how much horsepower could be used at certain rpm’s. The problem was the inboard engine manufacturer didn’t want to issue a warranty on their engine when it was connected to another manufacturer’s drive system, and understandably so. The neat part about the stern drive was it had a tapered shaft which allowed it to use various props to achieve best performance.

In 2013 I did an article on the stern drive and over the years compiled a list of the known units. I located 9 of them in various conditions and have all the serial number but one from a unit missing the name tag.

The rig in the above pictures is a Johnson matched unit, which is different from the Stern Drive totally. The "Matched" Unit was totally a Johnson product and another blunder which put them into financial straights.

One thing I forgot to mention, and this may not be completely accurate, but to my knowledge, the first use of an adjustable torque fin on an outboard gearcase appears to be that of the Johnson Tilting Stern Drive. The Johnson P series in 1927 started using a torque fin (they called it an equalizer) on their gearcases but they were not adjustable. The fin on the Tilting Stern Drive is adjustable. You can see it on Greg’s picture.

Museum in Hammondsport, NY?