Gary MacNorius has no time for “second best.” With a lifetime of living in and around boats, he has a passion for things that are finished just the way he wants them.

Growing up in Northern Miami, his walk home from school found him sidetracked on a route through the big boat builders’ headquarters that had established Northern Miami as the mecca for anyone interested in high-performance boating. He became familiar to workers at Thunderbird, Fiber Craft and Challenger.

With a few modern accents, Gary MacNorius rides out in a restored, vintage-styled 1957 Lone Star Meteor.

After he retired, he returned to the marine business, this time as a professional rather than a spectator. He became the general manager of Action Marine, a high-performance specialty shop in Miami. His exacting standards made him a natural at building prototypes and molds for those boats where the main emphasis was performance. He also began a search for the boats that had set the standards in the ’50s, just as the industry was beginning to recognize the marketing potential of high performance.

When Gary and his friend Bryan Fenwick went to Michigan to look at classics, Gary returned with a sad but fixable 1957 Lone Star Meteor. “ There are 10, perhaps 15 boats that are really worth this kind of effort,” says Gary. “And for me, the Lone Star Meteor is at the top of that list. The styling is pure General Motors. The fins were designed directly from the 1951 Buick LeSabre show car. Looking at the windshield, it’s definitely from early GM Motorama cars, even the brows over the headlights.”

While most of the boat’s styling came directly from the automotive industry, the original 1956 Lone Star Meteor had four bucket seats with a large console down the middle, which wouldn’t appear in an automobile design until the 1958 Ford Thunderbird.

“I always liked the 1956 Meteor’s console and bucket seat arrangement,” says Gary, “ but I never cared for the little metal trim they used on those early models. So I had a 1957 model with the nice white rubber rub rail, and I put a 1956 interior into it.”

Gary takes a slightly different approach to the hobby than many traditional classic boat enthusiasts. While he loves the styling and vivid colors used on these ’50s classics, he’s a firm believer in modern technology. “Why not make it a better boat?” he says. “The changes that I’v e made to the boat are very subtle. I installed a balsa core bottom. It’s extremely rigid — so much better than the original. I also took care of one of the original Meteor’s problems by moving the front seats back slightly. It makes it easier to get in and out of the driver’s seat. The original position of the steering wheel made it almost impossible to get your legs in or out. Even if you owned a Meteor, you probably couldn’t tell the difference.”

When the Lone Star Meteor was introduced alongside the Evinrude Sea Lark at the 1956 New York Boat Show, it sent shock waves through the marine industry. The upstaging of the show by these two boats was so enormous, it made the pages of Newsweek. Bob Hammond, designer of the Meteor, made a hurried call to the factory to have the staff prep the molds for production. The Meteor at the show was originally intended only as a display piece, engineered to draw the eager crowds into the Lone Star booth where the company could showcase the rest of its line.

Although the Meteor never sold in great numbers, its impact kept it in the Lone Star lineup through 1959, the boat’s final year. The intensive labor involved in the intricacies of the boat’s design kept the price high and out of reach for most buyers.

“These ’50s boats are all about color and style,” says Gary. “They were the boats middle-class Americans were buying. There were a couple of Chris-Crafts on the lake, but most of us had these neat fiberglass outboard boats. I love the interest they generate at shows. I think they’r e just coming into their prime.”

Lee Wangstad is recovering from surgery. This column, one of Lee's favorites, originally appeared in the July '03 issue.