Outdrives tree for a very novice...

Hi.
Can someone please clarify manufacturers/models... on outdrives?

Very confused if Mercruiser is from a Mercury-Ford division or nothing to do at all; or it is a General Motors; Alpha-Ones, where do they 'come' from; OMC, any relation with Johnson/Evinrude, Other main brands...

In general a clasification tree to understand the main branches and submodels for those units.

Thanks.

 

OMC has long been dead. Mercruiser has nothing to do with Ford or Mercury, they are a Wisconsin company. It makes Alpha and Bravo outdrives.

 

OMC is now part of Bombardier, where parts can be found. Mercury Marine produces Mercruiser units and their drives are as Gonzo mentioned.

A "tree" would be extensive and require a good bit of research just to get them all. It would be more helpful if you had specific questions.

 

Thanks.

 

MerCruiser built the 32 valve Lotus V8 in the Corvette a few years back...just a contract job as they had a spare engine plant at the time..

 

It's worth noting that Mercury Marine (and associated companies/brands) is owned by Brunswick (yes, the same Brunswick you see at bowling alleys and fitness clubs), which also owns some 40 other boat brands. No relation to the Mercury name used on some rebadged Ford cars.

Johnson and Evinrude, the former OMC brands, are now just brand names for outboards made by Bombardier Recreational Products, part of the same Bombardier group that builds ski-doos, Rotax engines, streetcars, subway trains, Learjets, commuter aircraft, etc.

OMC, or what's left of it under BRP control, is no longer in the sterndrive market except to distribute spare parts. As far as sterndrives are concerned, the recreational market is dominated by Mercruiser (a brand of Mercury/Brunswick) and Volvo Penta (same company as Volvo trucks and construction equipment, but not really linked to the Volvo car brand at present). Many of the stock sterndrive engines from Merc and Volvo have their roots in older GM blocks, and the two use essentially the same basic blocks for their gas engines. A handful of others- Konrad, etc. are also making sterndrives for the industrial market, and there are several small performance shops suppling Merc-compatible subassemblies and drives for racers and for people who like to pretend they're racers.

To come up with an exhaustive hierarchy of the whole industry would be a massive undertaking. Especially since, on the outboard engine side at least, model lines are completely revamped on a fairly regular basis.

 

Most of this has already been answered, but here's a summary.

Mercruiser, Mercury Marine is the largest supplier left, with approx. 70% market share. Linked to names like Wurlitzer (jukeboxes), Kiekhaefer (jukeboxes) and Brunswick (jukeboxes and bowling alleys). The outboard engines are also sold painted grey as Mariner, all small ones and some larger ones also are produced by Tohatsu.
The inboard engines are old GM designs, assembled in Mexico. Nobody seems to know for sure where the stern drives come from, but there are 100% identical drives offered at less than half of the Mercruiser list price.
The company also owns many boat manufacturers to ensure that their products will be installed in the future.

Volvo Penta has the rest of the (shrinking) market and belongs to the same group of companies that build engines and cars. They produce their own stern drives and diesel engines. The gasoline engines are also from GM. Volvo also owns several boat manufacturers.

OMC, BMW and Yamaha once were players in the stern drive field, but not anymore. And there still seems to exist a company called Sternpower, but there market share is almost zero.

 

Yamaha
Got caught stealing drive info from OMC ( twice) I believe the 2nd settlement had them banned form the US and Aus and I dont know where else or for how long.
Yanmar has just entered the fray...lets see what happens there.

And for Externet Mercury bought the Marine business from BMW to get hold of the exclusive deal they had with VM, the 4 5 and 6 cylinder diesels they use as the entry level power plants.
And Volvo and OMC had a joint venture for many years from just after the due prop to a couple of years back.
Thats when a Volvo became acceptable to own re steering, trim, hydrodynamics etc.
Mercruiser drives were manuafactured in Wisconsin and I would guess still are..anyone?

Also there is Konrad who do there own drive and a HP engine as well, US based. The drive is tougher then a Bravo but uses a separate tranny.
One of their markets is TRS replacement.

 

This is a great article on the history of the sterndrive...............

http://www.rbbi.com/folders/pat/isd.htm

Smooth seas and fair winds!

 

Great article from the book.
One other small item of History..a guy in my old home town south of Melbourne ( in oz) also started making stern drives but before Volvo.
Volvo found out as and tried to jump on him but he was easily able to prove he was manufaturing before they got their patent so they couldnt stop him.
He has all the newspaper cuttings up in his workshop of which he is quiet proud.
'Robbie Marine Products'
I haven't seen him for 20 years I hope he is still going?

 

Recently investigated an insurance claim and the boat was powered by a marinised 327 Chev swinging a Robbie sterndrive.
They still have a phone number listed in Frankston, Victoria, but I was unable to get through the them.
During the inquiries I learnt that there were possibly 2 Robbie drive designs - 1 chain-drive for small output engines and a shaft-drive as this one was.
On reflection this was more of an inboard/outboard, rather than a sterndrive, as there was quite a long shaft between the engine and the drive, with the engine located quite centrally in the boat.