Essex Performance Boats enjoys a well-deserved reputation as a builder of pre minim-level, custom lake boats, a characterization that has been established solely behind the momentum of their accomplished bow rider series. Some automobiles invite tactile recognition and are defined buy their individual feel- so too is it with the Essex, which has managed to elude the homogenization that exists among most of today's family open bow machines.

Their freshly minted 24-foot Valor preserves the pleasurable Essex ambience with its utterly refined passenger space and deeply rooted, palpable onboard quality, but it also reflects this progressive company's longstanding propensity to explore the territory that lines of convention. That tendency surfaced most notably in the Valor in a uniquely cut interior that is vastly different form anything that Essex has ever done, and which stands apart as that rare, unique interior treatment. Aside from the obvious aesthetic differences, the Valor's passenger area features a new ventilated seat design that releases heat by creating a natural air flow through cutaway chambers, rather than storing it.

Like the stunning 21-foot Sterling that came before it, a contemporary classic that has earned its reserved status as Essex's all-time best-seller, the stylishly cut Valor might well be the company's nest-generation signature boat. Like the Vortex, it is Euro'd out in its design approach: Tooled by Rick Davie, the Valor was released at the 2003 L. A. Boat Show and has caught fire. It now outsells the Sterling by a slim margin, although there will always be a place in Essex's stables for the more congenial, traditional look, like the Sterling and the Monarch.

This new design builds an additional level of insulation from the elements into the experience with a bit more overall size. It's a few inches deeper and taller than the Monarch: The extra height and depth is absorbed through another six inches of length, most of winch is distributed to the bow area.

Likes its open-bow Essex siblings, it resonates with the quality and projects the same overall excellence that we've come to expect with the arrival of the annual Essex test boat.

This boat sparkles with originality- a commodity in short supply in a size class whose collective styling sometimes projects a pack mentality. The bottom also gave way to the same stepped keel that appears on the 22-foot Vortex and 29-foot Alandra, a functional design element that reduces surface drag while retaining the same superior handling for which the line is known for.

Essex is among a core of builder who run as close to flawless in their execution as is practical in the world of individual hand-built customs. The quality and finish of their fiberglass work lies at the bedrock of one of the industry's best overall installations, and that begins at the outer skin with constistant gelcoat exellence.

This boat was vintage Essex, integrating color into the lines of the boat rather than overshadowing them, shot with clean, vibrant color and finished to an impossibly reflecive, slippery sheen. Essex will get as wild as any customer wants with the color gun, but as this boat showed, the right duotone shoot can be even more dramatic. The fade work is beautiful. The boat's strong interior graphics, which took on a free connective flow through the cockpit and across the rear deck lid, enhanced the sun-drenched color work even further. It was very much an integrated look.

Essex incorporated their familiar leveled-off rear-deck-lid design into the Valor, a styling bullet point that is very much appreciated on those long, languid, floating outings. It's very comfortably padded, ideal for sunning. Push-button hatch action is standard, part of a nicely packaged set of base-boat features. Ours raised to Reveal MerCruiser's 496 Mag HO, packaged with a Bravo One X drive and 24-inch stainless four-blade.

That well balanced drive train, which called for a $5,000 up charge over the opening-level 496 Mag, powered our fully loaded part to a 66.7-mph top end on a flat, hot day- our speedometer was about three mph optimistic. Essex reports speeds in the low 70s out of the same combination, about four miles an hour faster than the base 496 set up.

The Valor is a good-looking machine at water level, and, on this golden beauty, its look is enriched with Essex's tradition mix of natural polished aluminum, stainless and white powder coating. Tailing is standard, as are pop-up cleats. The tooling incorporates a deep nonskid swim platform, and barding is assisted with billet grips and a drop down ladder.