Speedboat

The A.B.T. Manufacturing Company's Speedboat, produced in March 1936, is a notable artifact of early pinball history thanks to its documented origin story: according to a March 1936 article in The Coin Machine Journal, Speedboat featured a hand-painted playfield and was a repainted version of another, unidentified A.B.T. game. It was one of several winning entries in a contest the manufacturer held to find profit-boosting playfield art, with each entry tested side-by-side against the original version to see which brought in more money for operators.

Speedboat's gameplay follows the pattern of mid-1930s single-ball payout machines, relying on electrical relays and switches to control scoring components well before the invention of player-controlled flippers, which would not arrive until 1947. The machine's real distinction lies not in its mechanics but in its origin as a prize-winning art redesign of an existing A.B.T. title.

Little is known about the machine's designer or the specific playfield art beyond its nautical "Speedboat" name, but its documented history as a contest-winning repaint makes it a fascinating case study in how manufacturers experimented with art to drive operator profits in the mid-1930s.