The Outboard Expert: June is New Outboard Month
Suzuki, Mercury and Evinrude are hosting new-model outboard engine product introductions in early June, and I can’t wait to see what each company has ready to show us.
June is shaping up to be an exciting month in outboard land, following a slew of introductions this February at the Miami International Boat Show (including a second-generation F115 from Yamaha, a 15 HP propane outboard from Lehr, and a 200 Pro Four-stroke from Mercury). Suzuki, Evinrude and Mercury Marine have all scheduled new-product introduction events for the media, and I’ll be on the scene at each venue to report the news. My schedule starts with Suzuki on June 2-4, at the fabulous Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo—where there really is a dress code, especially for boat writers. BRP will convene Club Evinrude in Milwaukee on June 12. Mercury Marine will reveal new outboard product on June 16 in Oshkosh, Wis., literally two blocks from my house, and by then I think the ice will be cleared from the Fox River.
Of the three events, I’m most excited by Club Evinrude. Here’s part of a communication I received from the Evinrude PR agency last week:
BRP TO UNVEIL THE FUTURE OF OUTBOARD ENGINES AT CLUB EVINRUDE
Evinrude’s historic “Global Reveal” to uncover a new era of outboards.
Editor's note: Evinrude ceased production of new outboards in 2020.
On Friday, June 13, at 7:30 p.m., BRP executives together with the Evinrude management, will change the way you look at the outboard engine industry.
How do they expect me to sleep between now and 7:30 p.m., June 13? The anticipation is almost more than I can stand, waiting for the actual future to be revealed.
I spent a few minutes trying to imagine what on earth (and sea) BRP could have cooked up, and I found myself thinking back to a few previous attempts at outboard reinvention that were to carry the Evinrude brand into the future. And sitting right there on my desk was a folder of old black-and-white glossy PR photos I saved from my days as a buckaroo junior PR associate at Outboard Marine Corporation, which included this image from the dyno room at the OMC engineering lab in Waukegan, Ill.
OMC never actually published the power rating of the “world’s most-powerful outboard,” a two-liter four-rotor racing engine, shown here on a test dyno in 1973.
The attached release is dated Feb. 23, 1973, and the headline proclaims “FIRST US-MADE ROTARY COMBUSTION OUTBOARD IS WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL.” That’s the four-rotor powerhead sitting on the dyno. The engineer to the right, holding a slide rule, is John Sheldon. The rotary program was managed by George Miller. OMC was already producing an air-cooled rotary snowmobile engine at the time, and this project added a water jacket for cooling. I recall the idea for a production engine was that a 500cc single rotor powerhead would make a nifty fishing boat motor, with a very low profile, and by simply stacking the rotors to increase displacement, more powerful motors could be created. OMC debuted 2.0-liter, four-rotor methanol-fueled racing versions in Johnson and Evinrude colors at the 1973 Miami Boat Show, and the motors cleaned up in European tunnel boat racing that season. Of course, 1973 was also about when the first “gas crisis” hit, and the poor fuel economy of the rotary motors suddenly became a big liability. The rotary engine program was scrapped. When I came on board at OMC in 1983, some of the more senior marketing staff were still shaking their heads about what might have been, and how badly OMC would have beat up on Mercury with the rotary motors. BRP will get another chance on June 13, at 7:30 p.m. CDT. And we will be there—stay tuned to boats.com, to find out what I learn.
