MEREDITH — The 39th annual Antique and Classic Boat Show Saturday brought a taste of the mid-20th century to Meredith Bay as the town docks were lined with vintage high-performance boats and the parking lot was filled with vintage cars.

Large crowds attended the all-day boat show, which featured restored speed boats from the 1940s and '50s. This year, the show also included a dozen or so vintage cars from the same era.

The shiny wooden-hulled performance boats had large steering wheels, upholstered seats and large windshields, bearing a strong resemblance to the cars on display. And, as show judge Bo Muller said, the boats and the cars of that era were nearly identical under their hoods.

Century brand boats, which were highlighted in this year's show, had the same Detroit-made engines as their land-traveling counterparts.

“Century was the first to make really powerful boats; they dropped these 300-horsepower Dodge and Cadillac V-8s into 17-foot boars,” said Muller, who runs a boat restoration business in his hometown, Sunapee.

The owners of the vintage boats and cars at the show had something else in common.

“You'll find that just about everyone here who owns one of those boats also owns one of those cars,” he said. “There's a big overlap.”

dseufert@newstote.com