Ahh, the radar arch. Remember those? A style sensation from the 1980s nowhere to be seen on most new boats in 2026. Born from the NASCAR Plymouth Superbird’s rear wing perched high enough to clear the car’s open trunklid, the radar arch was yet another example of contemporary boat design following automotive fashion. Where did the arch go? Let’s follow the life story of “Archie,” as his journey marched him from Talladega to Torch Lake.
Called Winged Warriors, those Chrysler Corporation Superbirds had tall downforce-inducing, trunklid-clearing foil section rear wings. The cars performed well on long, straight sections of a redneck racetrack but were a handful in left turns. (No evidence of attempting a right turn has yet been unearthed.) And after the 1970 season, NASCAR put a new rule into effect that sidelined the Daytona and Superbird. The old adage, “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” wasn’t working for Chrysler Corp. So Archie’s father is believed to be Strip “The King” Weathers, a 1970 Plymouth Superbird from the animated movie “Cars,” but may in fact be his similarly mustachioed uncle, the ‘69 Dodge Charger Daytona. Inheritance battles are ongoing.
The newly orphaned wing faced an identity crisis. Like an unloved caterpillar on the Plymouth showroom floor, Archie needed a new identity. So they (them/theirs) blossomed like a butterfly into a new world on water with a new name: Radar Arch.
In the 1970s, large motoryachts began to ditch radar masts in favor of the newly fashionable arch. The mid-’70s Chris-Craft 68 Roamer, then the second-largest production yacht in America behind the Hatteras 70, flaunted a “reverse” arch right off the bat. Sneaky, eh? By day one of the Reagan administration, Bertram Yachts was on the march with their 58 M/Y sporting a radar arch. And soon the arch would trickle down, marching relentlessly one model year after another into ever smaller boats during the mid-1980s.
This trickle-down effect (no relation to NASCAR’s late Dick Trickle) meant the arch would march onto America’s TV screens in spectacular fashion aboard the Miami Vice 1985 Chris-Craft Stinger and 1986 Wellcraft Scarab. Archie had hit the real waves on the airwaves. Both boats would have looked positively naked in their mid-1980s TV appearances without radar arches, right? But no actual radar array was ever installed aboard any of the Miami Vice boats. In fact, as the radar arch became more popular on downsized boats, the percentage of radar-less arches increased significantly.
So many arches, so little purpose.
The 1980s radar arch craze had more to do with fashion than function on just about every boat down to a 26 Bayliner—for which it was called a “sport arch” since no Bayliner 26 owner could have reasonably been expected to afford radar.
Every rake of arch imaginable paraded itself at boat shows from Italy to Idaho. Reverse radar arches became respectable even on staid cruising motoryachts like the Carver 42 Aft Cabin. Arches so rakishly short they needed their own arch atop them to actually host a radar became accepted in the marketplace.
But by the late 1990s so many arches without so many radars began to draw ridicule on the waterfront. Impotent radar arches became known disparagingly as laundry racks; pointless arches without working radar atop. Like the stretch limo of the same era, the radar arch had overstayed its welcome. The arch had fallen.
Why? The nature of boat design has changed. For one, we stopped copying NASCAR design cues decades ago. People grew to despise canvas enclosures, for which arches provided convenient anchors. The radar arch which marched all over the boating industry has been replaced by T-tops on plus-sized center consoles, speaker-peppered surf boat towers on boats under 36 feet, and integral hardtops on “coupes,” which have replaced “express cruisers.” No arches required.
So with apologies to the anthropomorphic egg Humpty Dumpty, I offer this brief poetic eulogy to all the arched boats built from 1975 onward:
Marchie Archie marched on y’all.
But the T-tops and hardtops gave Archie a fall.
The yacht’s iron horses and all the yachtsmen
Won’t bolt Archie back on their boats again.
Mr. “The King,” I hope you’re reading this.
This article originally appeared in the November 2025 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
