[kach22i]

Originally Posted by spuggy

The Brits made several versions (called MTBs)

The hull design of the Elco has strong British roots.

http://www.petertare.org/ptdesign/pt_design.htm

Scott-Paine founded the British Powerboat Company ..............The superior performance of the Scott-Paine boat was not lost on Assistant Secretary of the Navy Charles Edison. By January of 1939, virtually all of the domestic private and government proposals had proven flawed. But, however desperate the Navy might have been to begin production, it did not want to appear to be selling out American boatbuilders by throwing in with the British Powerboat Company. In a clandestine meeting, Edison sought out Sutphen to act as a straw man to buy the Scott-Paine prototype and ship it back to the U.S. for trials. The boat arrived in New York two days after the outbreak of war in Europe.

The Higgins design bore no resemblance to the Elco 80. Where the Elco boat gradually evolved from the original Scott-Paine design, the Higgins 78' was designed in-house by Frank Higgins and Teddy Sprague