Facts about Evinrude/Johnson racing outboards made my OMC

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Originally Posted by Mark Poole ModVP

Days before OMC went under, I knew a former OMC service school tech that was teaching a vo-tech marine school. I was talking to him one day and he was all excited because he was going to get one of the rotary outboards delivered to the school. One would have to wonder if it would have had a powerhead under the cover or not. Anyway he never got it after his contact told him it was on the shipping dock to be put on a truck. If that is true, that's pretty sad.

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To the best of my knowledge, Charlie Strang gave Bob Zipps 2 of them. He still has them and told me he was going to give them to some old timey museum. BRP had 2 others that they told me were going to their museum in Quebec. Sea Way Marine has the old unit that was in Engineering. There is one more black exhaust manifold somewhere which I thought was on tour for the Evinrude 100 yr. tour. I'm not sure if BRP still has that one or not. I also know of 2 photo units, no powerheads; I asked for one when BRP quit making Evinrudes, but was told NO. If someone else knows more I would appreciate knowing.

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Originally Posted by Rotary John

To the best of my knowledge, Charlie Strang gave Bob Zipps 2 of them. He still has them and told me he was going to give them to some old timey museum. BRP had 2 others that they told me were going to their museum in Quebec. Sea Way Marine has the old unit that was in Engineering. There is one more black exhaust manifold somewhere which I thought was on tour for the Evinrude 100 yr. tour. I'm not sure if BRP still has that one or not. I also know of 2 photo units, no powerheads; I asked for one when BRP quit making Evinrudes, but was told NO. If someone else knows more I would appreciate knowing.

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How does somebody "give" R&D prototypes to someone? Only way Charlie could pull that off is if the equipment was completely absent from either the OMC or BRP asset books. Not sure that Zipps has an iron clad grip on them. An example of disputed property planned for a museum would be "Sue" the restored T Rex skeleton. It's currently the property of a federal court pending the outcome of the ownership dispute.

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Originally Posted by WaterZebra

How does somebody "give" R&D prototypes to someone? Only way Charlie could pull that off is if the equipment was completely absent from either the OMC or BRP asset books. Not sure that Zipps has an iron clad grip on them. An example of disputed property planned for a museum would be "Sue" the restored T Rex skeleton. It's currently the property of a federal court pending the outcome of the ownership dispute.

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BRP wasn't in the picture at the time. I'm sure racing stuff wasn't on any books as assets. Besides, as CEO Strang could pretty well do as he pleased. The one w/o the gearcase was actually parked in front of Don Kunney's garage door as a retirement present from Jim Nerstrom. I don't know the details on how Zipps got them, but Strang told me himself he had given 2 to him.

Well.. OMC - Evinrude was using outboard brackets already 1956..
"First in Outboards”..again..!!

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Originally Posted by Rotary John

BRP wasn't in the picture at the time. I'm sure racing stuff wasn't on any books as assets. Besides, as CEO Strang could pretty well do as he pleased. The one w/o the gearcase was actually parked in front of Don Kunney's garage door as a retirement present from Jim Nerstrom. I don't know the details on how Zipps got them, but Strang told me himself he had given 2 to him.

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Sounds to me like Charlie had to do some quick moves under the radar. NO CEO has that much power.........not then and not now.

2 X Evinrude Lark on brackets 1956.

https://www.screamandfly.com/attachm...3&d=1676121871

A great Saturday for boating

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A few stops for lunch and a Stella..:cheers:


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Originally Posted by WaterZebra

Sounds to me like Charlie had to do some quick moves under the radar. NO CEO has that much power.........not then and not now.

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Being there at THAT TIME, Charlie DID have that power. He controlled where each $ was spent. His entire immediate staff was very PRO racing. I guess you could conclude to the demise of OMC. Very unfortunate. When Green Marine was the owner, Charlie told me in the pits at Kankakee that all the tooling was worn out. I guess the Rotary & V-8 programs took away from progressive development.

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Originally Posted by John Schubert

Being there at THAT TIME, Charlie DID have that power. He controlled where each $ was spent. His entire immediate staff was very PRO racing. I guess you could conclude to the demise of OMC. Very unfortunate. When Green Marine was the owner, Charlie told me in the pits at Kankakee that all the tooling was worn out. I guess the Rotary & V-8 programs took away from progressive development.

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John: The rotary program ended 15/20 yrs. before the demise of OMC. Charlie spent more of promoting the OMC F-1 series in the '80's then the entire rotary program cost. And that didn't include the cost of the racing V-8 development.

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Originally Posted by Rotary John

John: The rotary program ended 15/20 yrs. before the demise of OMC. Charlie spent more of promoting the OMC F-1 series in the '80's then the entire rotary program cost. And that didn't include the cost of the racing V-8 development.

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John,
wasn’t poking holes at either program, as I was an OMC driver & believed in the racing program. Having said that, don’t you feel that the rotary race program(yes I know about the proposed outboards & the successful snowmobile programs & I had a Trocoid splg, on my desk, the costs vs development of saleable products was out of balance. Of course, buying the boat companies to stay in step with Merc also didn’t help. And, BTW, st the time of the rotary program, my dad worked at Curtis Wright who had the rights to some segments of the rotary markets. He was even invited to Waukegan to give his/CW opinion on the trocoid coating.

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Originally Posted by Rotary John

John: The rotary program ended 15/20 yrs. before the demise of OMC.
Charlie spent more of promoting the OMC F-1 series in the '80's then the entire rotary program cost. And that didn't include the cost of the racing V-8 development.

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Speed cost $$$$$...
In the executive suites, the decision of marketing via Racing has a cap ceiling, where the development and racing expenses exceeds the PR value in generating Sales of the corporate retail products.

Reading some of the posts, maybe Charlie (with racing enthusiasm like Carl Kiekhaefer) exceed the cap ceiling threshold.
Similar to the days of … Kiekhaefer vs OMC … Ford vs Ferrari … Detroit’s Big 3 racing in NASCAR. But some brands have enhanced popularity and sales via performance like Edelbrock and Holley.

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Originally Posted by John Schubert

John,
wasn’t poking holes at either program, as I was an OMC driver & believed in the racing program. Having said that, don’t you feel that the rotary race program(yes I know about the proposed outboards & the successful snowmobile programs & I had a Trocoid splg, on my desk, the costs vs development of saleable products was out of balance. Of course, buying the boat companies to stay in step with Merc also didn’t help. And, BTW, st the time of the rotary program, my dad worked at Curtis Wright who had the rights to some segments of the rotary markets. He was even invited to Waukegan to give his/CW opinion on the trocoid coating.

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The rotary race program had one and only one goal; beat Mercury. As soon as Strang had the V-6, he dropped the rotary like a hot potato. It took several years of additional development for the V-6 to equal the rotary in HP and never did match low speed torque. I believe if the same effort was put towards developing production rotaries, a much different result would have happened. At the time, there was 4 engineers in the rotary program in Waukegan. 2 of them were assigned to the race program. I believe Strang's passion for racing and his ego to "beat those black bastards" overshadowed good business judgement. The results speak for themselves.

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Originally Posted by Lake X Kid

Speed cost $$$$$...
In the executive suites, the decision of marketing via Racing has a cap ceiling, where the development and racing expenses exceeds the PR value in generating Sales of the corporate retail products.

Reading some of the posts, maybe Charlie (with racing enthusiasm like Carl Kiekhaefer) exceed the cap ceiling threshold.
Similar to the days of … Kiekhaefer vs OMC … Ford vs Ferrari … Detroit’s Big 3 racing in NASCAR. But some brands have enhanced popularity and sales via performance like Edelbrock and Holley.

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The cap was certainly exceeded for OMC. I didn't and don't see any PR benefit for OMC in racing. Mercury has always been the high performance product. Johnson and Evinrude were fishing motors. In my opinion, no amount of racing was going to change that. While the rotary generated enormous amount of interest and spectators, it wasn't done to improve the product, only to beat Mercury. Just my thoughts.

Charlie rose from kid racer to corporate leader.

Charlie Strang joined the Outboard Marine Corporation. He began as director of marine engineering, eventually climbing the corporate ladder to president and general manager in 1974, chief executive officer in 1980, and chairman of the board in 1982. Charlie retired in 1990.



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