Outboards

By any reckoning, 2001 was a frenetic year for the outboards business. It began with the bombshell of Outboard Marine Corporation's collapse just before Christmas last year, leading to industry-wide speculation about the future of its once-market-leading Evirude and Johnson outboard brands.

Then in February this year, the bankruptcy court signed over OMC's assets to Genmar and Bombardier, after a failed last-minute bid from OMC's arch rival,
Brunswick.

Until recently, little had been heard of Bombardier's plans for Evinrude and Johnson, save for assurances from the new owner that it would honour existing product warranties and provide spare parts, and that it was going to scrap production at Waukegan, Wisconsin. Outboard manufacturing was transferred to a new plant at Sturtevant, a short distance away. By August 17 outboard assembly had begun to resume, and on September 27 the first 90hp Evinrude model rolled off the production line.

At October's Fort Lauderdale boat show, however, Bombardier executives were more forthcoming about their plans. The group is continuing the process started by OMC of separating the Evinrude and Johnson brands. Evinrude is presented as the premium range, and will cover the power range 75-250hp. Johnson will be marketed as the traditional two-stroke outboard, with models from 25-175hp. Four-strokes will also be part of the Johnson outboard line-up. These will be 6-, 8-, 9.9-, 15-, 40-, 50-, 60- and 70hp models and will be added early in the New Year. Some of the models will, inspite of earlier doubts, be produced by Suzuki.

While the demise of OMC was causing turmoil in the outboards marketplace, three leading global players in the second half of 2001 pressed on with product launches that take four-stroke petrol engines into areas of the market traditionally of dominated by two-strokes.

Today, five global players are fighting over a market whose unit volumes have remained static for several years at around 800,000 a year. The lion's share of this business is claimed by the US, where around 350,000 outboards are sold a year.

The good news for industry is that the power demand in this market has been rising. Between 1990 and 2000, the average horsepower rating in the US rose from 66.8hp to 86.9hp. In Europe, the numbers and power averages are far lower, although customers in France, Europe's biggest single market, taking about 28,000 units a year and Italy (26,000) now want more power.

The most recent of challenges at the top end of the power range have come from Honda, a company that has always been dedicated to four-stroke petrol engines. October saw the European launch of its BF200 and BF225, bringing its outboard offering to 17 models.

Using what is essentially a Honda car block, the BF200/225 offers several engineering developments. These include VTEC valve-timing, multi-point sequential fuel injection and a variable air intake system. Honda and arch-rival Yamaha with its F225 model, have with single bounds simultaneously taken four-stroke technology into the top tier of outboard performance.

While its two major Japanese competitors in the recreational outboards market were racing to the top of the outboard power range with four-stroke engines, Suzuki was taking a more incremental route to expand its four-stroke outboard offering. In early September it unveiled its DF 140, which exceeds the previous biggest model, the DF 115, by 25hp. At the bottom end of the range, meanwhile, also new for 2002 are the DF 4/5 4 and 5hp portable models.

Mercury - still on top
Despite the turmoil in the outboards market, Mercury Marine remains the largest player, both in the US and in Europe, where, according to Jacques Bronchart, general manager of Mercury Marine's Marine Power Europe subsidiary, the Mercury and Mariner brands have grown in market share.

Giant or no, Mecury has also been affected by the events of the past 12 months. A year ago Brunswick chairman George Buckley announced the loss of 150 jobs at the Mercury outboards plant in Fond du Lac as part of a package of cutbacks to prepare for an anticipated downturn in the boating market.

More recently in Europe, MPE was hit by the collapse of its Mercury distributor for the UK and Ireland, Sowester. It has since transferred this business to its Mariner distributor, EP Barrus. Sowester's demise, says Bronchart, came as a shock as Sowester and Barrus together had both been increasing their year-on-year outboard sales by around 30 per cent.

On the product front, the main news from Mercury has been the launch - first in the US and now in Europe - of its mid-power four-stroke outboards.
Europe's sole independent outboard manufacturer, Italy's Selva offers its own range of two-strokes from 3-100hp and parallels this with a four-stroke offering of 4-115hp models sourced from Yamaha.

For Outboards for 2001, see IBI December/January 2001/02 issue.

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