Trojan

Two different companies wore the Trojan name, and the first thing to know about any Trojan is which one built it. The original was Lancaster, Pennsylvania, from 1949: an everyman cruiser factory that put middle-class America afloat by the thousand — some 2,200 of one 32-foot sedan alone — and then, under Whittaker ownership, let naval architect Harry Schoell talk it into the future. Schoell's patented DeltaConic hull carried the International 10 Meter and its sisters through the 1980s, six hundred boats of it, and made Trojan briefly the most adventurous production yard in the country. Bankruptcy closed Lancaster in 1992. Miramar Marine — later Genmar, owner of Carver — bought the name, moved it to Wisconsin, and built one final line under the badge: the 370/390/400 Express of 1993–2002.

Our shelf holds that last line, and it deserves better than the confusion it swims in. The Carver-era Express is not a DeltaConic and no seller should tell you otherwise: its hull was engineered by Dana Ward, formerly Bertram's vice president of engineering, and its topsides were drawn by Fulvio de Simoni, the Italian pen behind the Pershing line. Serious parentage, in other words, wearing a dead company's name. One boat, three badges — 370 in 1993–94, 390 when a swim platform stretched it in 1995, 400 from 1998 for no recorded reason — with the same cherrywood mid-cabin interior and 6-foot-4 headroom throughout. The against-case: the gas V-drives drink hard on plane, the mid-cabin is snugger than the brochure implied and its head is a wet one, and the independent press never gave the 400 a full instrumented test — the surveyor and the owner forums do the magazines' work on this model. And the brand died around 2002, so there is no builder to call and resale gravity is soft. That orphan discount arrives when you buy and departs when you sell, which is precisely the trade.

What the trade looks like with lines under it, on the 400 Express:

Buy one if you read pedigree in hull lines rather than brochures and plan to keep the boat long enough not to care about the badge. Walk away if resale is part of the plan, or if the fuel card is. Its orphaned New Jersey neighbor Silverton made the opposite bet — salon over cockpit; the rest of the corner is on the motoryacht shelf and the whole fleet on the powerboat shelf.

Sources: The Powerboat Guide (Trojan 370-390-400 Express, 1993–2002); trojanboats.net brand history and Harry Schoell archive; PropTalk, Classic Boat: The Trojan Boat Company; owner threads on Boatered and Club Sea Ray.