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The Yellow Jacket Story
In 1994 Bob sold the remaining Yellow Jacket assets to the highly respected engine builder Don Sohn of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Don has since completed around 70 more engines, two of which are now in my possession along with a sizeable number of others, many of which have been featured in articles on this website. He also completed a number of prototype models which Bruce had designed and built but never promoted for sale. In 2022 as he turned 88 years old, Don was understandably becoming concerned regarding the need to ensure that the history of the Yellow Jacket project was not allowed to die with him. Accordingly, Don approached Tim Dannels, editor and publisher of the sadly now-discontinued "Engine Collector's Journal" (ECJ) to ask if he might consider running a piece on the Yellow Jacket story. After reviewing Don's outline, Tim decided that it would be too much for ECJ, especially since he was already considering the termination of that iconic publication. He did however agree to help Don to organize the material into a book format.
What follows is the 36 page book that Don and Tim came up with. Don wished Tim's immense contribution to this article to be fully acknowledged, a sentiment which I fully endorse. However, Don must accept much of the credit for the preservation of the basic information as well as the physical continuation of the Yellow Jacket series. A word about the format of what follows. Don sent it to me in the form of a pdf document of over 3 MB in size. This is too large to be uploaded onto my website as an attachment. Instead, with the help of my wife Lorna I converted each page into a jpg image, also significantly reducing the file size of each page to keep the final document withing manageable limits. What follows is a sequential presentation of all of the 36 numbered pages in order, admittedly at relatively low resolution which has resulted in some loss of clarity. All the pages are completely legible as presented - I've checked - and I retain the original hi-res pdf document. I'm happy to email that document to any interested reader upon request. Anyway, without further ado I'll begin the presentation of the Yellow Jacket story as compiled by Don Sohn with the invaluable assistance of Tim Dannels. Enjoy!
Article © Don Sohn, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, USA First published December 2022 |
The Yellow Jacket racing engines are among the most iconic such powerplants of them all. They were created by Bruce Underwood, who constructed a long series of them in progressively improved form beginning in 1955. In 1985 the project was purchased from the Underwood Estate by Bob Cowles, who thus acquired the residue of the project but did not actually construct any more engines apart from completing a few almost-finished examples. 
After this task was completed, Don sent the resulting material to me with a request that I consider ways and means of making it available to our fellow model engine enthusiasts through my website. The present article is my response to that request. 
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