Bob Grubb: Vintage Man

Bob Grubb grew up around motors. He went to work for Grubb Marine right after high school, fixing Mercury outboards for customers, and eventually took over the business from his father before retiring in 2008. A shop tends to accumulate extra stuff, and when he went to his first meeting of the Antique Outboard Motor Club in New Jersey, it was with an eye toward unloading some of the spare parts that were cluttering the place. Grubb Marine has closed its doors, but that trip to the swap meet started a hobby, and when he wasn't working on customers' motors, he found himself working on his own.

"There's a simplicity and a charm, I think, to the older motors, once you get familiar with them, that the newer stuff kind of loses," he says. "I developed an appreciation for the old engineering, and some of the neat ideas that they tried. Some were successful, some weren't."

Grubb's collection of antique outboards has grown to the point where he's building a separate structure to contain it — almost 300 strong, starting with a 1907 Waterman Porto. He has pictures of his collection on his web page and wants the general public to be able to see them (arrange a visit by contacting him at the website), but the best way to display a boat motor is, well, on a boat. "They were meant to be run," he says, "and as long as someone exercises reasonable caution to lubricate them and look over them mechanically, I don't have any worries about running the only known example of a particular motor."

Grubb had a fairly complete collection of Mercury motors — as a former dealer, he says it's expected of him. But his real passion is for the rarities, the evolutionary dead ends of the outboard world. "I'm particularly attracted to the really early outboard motors, going to the extremes of the unusual," he says. A 1920 Amphion motor, for example: "It's just an unusual brand, produced in very small quantities back in the early days of outboard motors. It's not the only one, there are others, but I think it's safe to say it's the only one that's regularly in service. I try to walk the walk," he continues. "I encourage people that there's more to the hobby than stockpiling old engines and saying 'there they are.' Or worse yet, saying 'I've got them and you can't look at them.' I don't understand that mentality."