units for PT boats. And so she sat for years, until 1970 when Chuck Mistele acquired her, replaced the front decking and made the chang- es needed to fit a pair of potent big-block Chevrolet engines. Since then, Mistele has proudly enjoyed and shared Miss America IX, and sometimes that has meant opening the throttles wide.


The Ride of a Lifetime


More than 40 years after she was returned to the water, it’s a spar- kling early morning on Lake Dora in Tavares, Florida. The mahoga- ny and gold leaf beauty virtually glows as Mistele fires up the twin 550-horsepower Chevys. That may sound like a lot less than what she once had, but because of the light-


er engines and much reduced fuel capacity, she weighs about half of what she did back then, which means the power to weight ratio isn’t that different from 1931.


The sound from the 12 unmuffled exhaust stacks makes it clear that those engines are powerful. The idle is a bit lumpy, but the beat


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