https://automobilist.org/tags/outboard-motors/ Recent content in Outboard Motors on Automobilist.org Hugo en-us Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://automobilist.org/the-only-european-city-with-no-cars-still-has-an-engine-culture/ Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://automobilist.org/the-only-european-city-with-no-cars-still-has-an-engine-culture/ <p>Cars stop at Piazzale Roma. Past that point there is no road, no kerb, no parking, and no traffic in any sense a driver would recognise. What there is instead is a status hierarchy of powered vehicles that behaves exactly like car culture, with varnish standing in for paint and an outboard badge standing in for a bonnet script.</p> <p>The object at the top of that hierarchy is the motoscafo, the licensed water taxi. It is a limousine in every respect except the medium: a long, low, hand-built hull, decks and coamings in lacquered mahogany, chrome brightwork, cream upholstery, and a cabin sized for six people and their luggage. The yards around the lagoon that build and rebuild these hulls work to a form that has changed very little in seventy years, for the same reason the London taxi kept its shape. The job did not change.</p>