Call me stupid but...

[The Bear]

I never knew the Johnson 4-strokes were made by Suzuki until I was out yesterday and saw a 140 4 stroke Johnson that sounded exactly like mine. I did a double take and studied the engine only to come home and check it out online and find out that its the exact same engine as my 140 Zuke!

[John Jones]

and Mercs = Yamaha.
Some of them anyway.

[GoneFission]

A fool is anyone who calls another stupid without asking a few questions first...      

Yep, zukis are OMCs, and some Mercs are Yammis, and (back in history):

West Bend became Chrysler, which became Force, which later became some Mercury models.

Scott-Atwater became McCullough and made a bunch of motors as Sears, Gamefisher, and Eska.  Are you seeing a trend?  

West Bend and Elgin sold zillions of motors through Sears - from the 50s through the 60s - then replaced by other names - see above.  

But here is a great story:

Chris-Craft got in the fray in the 40s and 50s and sold Chris-Craft outboards - called the "World's finest outboards" - they were available in models from 5-10 HP.  CC hired a bunch of Mercury engineers for their designs and Mercury sued.  Mercury won, and CC was forced out of the outboard business.  But the business did not go totally away, the Oliver Corporation from Battle Creek (remember CC was based in Algonac and Holland, MI) begain building versions of the CC design.  

So Mercury became Chris-Craft, but Chris-Craft could not make Mercurys, so Chris-Crafts became Olivers.  But it's not over yet: George Martin, creator of Martin Outboard Motors, left Scott Atwater to start Martin Motors, a division of National Pressure Cooker Company.  Their claim to fame was the poppet valve induction system used on these outboards.  (Other two-cycle outboards had long utilized reed valves to meter fuel mix into the crankcase.)

However, Martin lost the poppet-valve technology claim, and the 35-hp Oliver Olympus sported poppet-valve technology.   However, the industry leaders of OMC, Mercury, and even Scott McCulloch forged ahead with larger outboards, and Oliver could not keep up.  

Oliver struck a deal with Perkins Ltd., (the diesel engine folks), and the motors became Perkins, then later Sunbeam, and finally Rootes before ceasing production - the poppet valve technology has never returned, but could be very efficient for a 2 cycle engine.    

And one last one:
Muncie - or, more correctly Muncie Gear Works, or MGW - also made outboards from the 30s.  In fact, Muncie took Johnson on and won in the 40s over the caviation plate in the Supreme Court - http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/g ... &invol=759
Muncie later made I/Os rumor has it that the Muncie I/O became the Volvo - but I've never had that confirmed.  However, MGW quit making I/O about the same time Volvo started making them...  

There are many others - Champions, Neptunes, Lausons, and Rileys  Riley was so cool - they made a 75HP, 4 cycle, 5 cylinder radial outboard in the 50s that was simply huge for it's time!  Did ya get all that - 4 cycle?  5 cylinder radial? 75HP when everyone else was working at 35?  Wow!  

So it ain't no big news that OMC is running Zuki engines under their hood - it's a marine outboard tradition!  

See ya on the water!!

[John Jones]

Interesting Capt. John.  

I had a Scott-Atwater in the 60's.  Never could keep gears in the lower unit.  My son is running a Martin on an old Gamefisher right now.

[GoneFission]

Cool - vintage stuff.  Is that a fiberglass Gamefisher or a plastic one?  I remember the fiberglass ones did not have gelcoat, and the gunwales would make you itch if you rested your arms on them.  I had one with an 18 horse Scott - that motor would run!  I had to run 20:1 oil/gas because the motor wound up so high that the needle bearings would start to seize after about 5 minutes at full throttle (of course - that's the only way it ran!   :twisted: I really did not need a throttle - an on-off switch would have been fine   ).  With 20:1 oil that old Scott-Atwater would scream and stay lubricated.  My dad was an outboard mechanic and we had about every kind of outboard there was on one of our boats at one time or another...  

Got pics of that Martin?  Great to hear it's still running!  

See ya on the water!

[jeff23]

Wow, that's great--I belong to a club that restores old farm machinery--quite a few old Oliver tractors around at the antique engine shows.

[John Jones]

Gamefisher is FG.

I'll see if I can get him to take some pics of the Martin OB.  I don't know if it's at his house or at his mother's place on the lake.

Marine Surplus that you see RickK and I mention all the time has 15-20 vintage OB's on display.  Some are really weird looking.  It's a shame but they are about 15 feet off the ground in their warehouse and you can't get a close look at them.