Doug Young's first boat was a 1986 Ebbtide, but it would not be his last. He had bought the Ebbtide new, and quickly fell in love with the whole experience of boating. Sadly, his daughter was born premature a few years later, and the ensuing financial responsibilities forced him to make some significant sacrifices that included selling his beloved boat.

Young knew he wanted another boat, and after some time went looking at new ones. Eventually he decided perhaps a classic would be more fun.

He took out an ad in a local shopper in search of a fiberglass boat with fins. 'I got a lot of responses,' Young says, 'but only one that held any promise.' He found the 1965 Razorback Fury out behind a house, sitting on top of a trash pile, turned upside down. Looking underneath, Young could see the windshield and the fins, and knew it was something special. 'I gave the guy $100, came back the next day with my car hauler and picked it up,' he recalls.

In addition to boating, another one of Young's hobbies was street-rodding. He says he enjoyed being able to create something custom-made, but over the years it had begun to take a different shape. 'It got to be such a money game,' he explains. 'A lot of people were just paying to have a rod built, since it costs so much to build one yourself. It lost the 'do-it-yourself' feeling.' So he decided he wanted a boat that would embody all of the custom touches of a hot rod, while getting him out on the water. 'It would be the best of both worlds,' he says.

Razorback Fiberglass Boats was founded in 1957 by James Cripps and Harry Brown in Little Rock, Arkansas. The team's first boat, the Ski-Mate, was introduced in 1958. Razorback was successful in a regional market that included Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. In 1959 it sold controlling interest to Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co. to aid in a major expansion that allowed the company to continue building boats.

In 1964, Cripps and Brown conceived the Razorback Fury, which carved out a new path for the company in the luxury/ sport boat market. And although the Fury wasn't a sales leader, it served to attract buyers into the showrooms, and they purchased the more practical utility boats that filled out the line.

After he got it home, Young spent three or four weeks trying to figure out just what to do with the Fury. 'I had been looking for something that I could throw together and use,' he adds. 'But I could see this boat needed more than that. The transom was weak and the floor was shot.

Luckily, Young had 15 years of experience doing auto body work. 'I had painted boats before,' he admits, 'but had never done any type of structural work on them. I wanted it to be done right, and even though it ended up taking me more than 14 months to complete, I really enjoyed the work.

Young says he had no qualms about changing the color scheme slightly from its original design. 'That's what I liked about this kind of project,' he explains. 'I had a lot of flexibility. In the end, the important thing was that I liked it.'' With the project completed, Young wasted no time getting his family back into boating. 'We use the Fury all the time,' he says. 'Probably three or four times a week in the summer.'

For Young and his family, they couldn't have found a better boat. 'What I find amazing is the attention that the Fury draws whenever we head out onto the water,' Young says. 'Even those big triple-engined boats come over for a closer look. It really is the best of both worlds.'