New Brunswick Corp. president Mark Schwabero thinks people will be impressed by the new sterndrive engines Mercury Marine plans to introduce soon.
The man who was named as Brunswick CEO Dusty McCoy’s eventual successor said the engines will come with “a whole array of features.”
Although the company hasn’t specifically said whether the engines will be debuted at Mercury’s media event June 16-18 in Fond du Lac, Wis. — and in fact has not specified any engines to be debuted — it has announced that multiple engines will be introduced at that time.
The company also has said it soon plans to debut a sterndrive engine for which it has built its own engine block, instead of procuring it from the automotive industry as Mercury had in the past.
“I think when the timing is right and the product is launched, you’ll see there’ll be a whole array of features that are going to come with that new product,” Schwabero told Trade Only Today. “It gets as fundamental as, when you have the opportunity to start with that engine block and have complete control of integration, the product is offering things not offered in the past. I think you’ll be impressed when that new product comes to market.”
The same group of engineers that came up with Mercury’s wildly popular 150 FourStroke are using the same development processes in creating the sterndrive product, so it’s reasonable for consumers to expect some innovations, Schwabero said.
Some industry insiders have wondered whether the rapid innovation in four-stroke outboards has helped shift some of the public’s desire for sterndrive propulsion in that direction. McCoy has alluded to upcoming innovations in that space during earnings calls and analyst meetings and said manufacturing its own sterndrives can help the company pull costs down by making its manufacturing processes more efficient.
“You’ll be hearing about it soon,” Schwabero said.
Look for more from Schwabero on his new role in the July issue of Soundings Trade Only in a Q&A by Reagan Haynes and coverage of Mercury’s media event from Trade Only executive editor Chris Landry.
