Boating Industry

January 2015

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34 | Boating Industry | January 2015 www.BoatingIndustry.com /// Market Trends /// components of the engine have been optimized for a marine application to improve durability. "[The new features] are difficult to de- scribe, but once you experience them on the boat, you say 'Man, how did we not introduce this years and years ago?'" said Onni. "[Service items on the engine] have been logically and intuitively organized so customers can understand what pieces of the engine do they have to interact with when they service the engine or they want to maintain the engine." Feedback for the new V6 engine has been largely positive from Mercury's customers. "Having the 4.5L really benefited us, espe- cially on our new model, the Speranza, which is a 21-foot boat. [The boat] has been a huge success," said Ben Dorton, brand manager at Bryant Boats. Bob Wachs, director of dealer develop- ment for Nautic Global Group, is pleased to see improvements from Mercury's previous "hand-me-down technologies." He wouldn't be surprised if Volvo Penta designed similar products in the future. "I'm pretty sure there's not a great future in relying on Detroit to make your engines for you. The signs that Mercury obviously saw were that we probably ought to control this business our- selves," said Wachs. "Volvo is a great product. It is very well crafted, it's very well-assembled and it delivers great customer surveys and great customer satisfaction … but technol- ogy wise I feel like the new Mercurys are really a good step forward." Having said that, Wachs hesitates to say either engine manufacturer's method has a huge advantage over the other. Nautic Global Group believes both Mercury and Volvo Penta are dependable vendors build- ing quality products that fit a number of the boat builder's needs. Rich history of proven products Volvo Penta's dedication to the sterndrive seg- ment is unquestionable. The company intro- duced the industry's first sterndrive engine, the "Aquamatic," at the New York Motor Boat Show in 1959, an automotive engine adapted to marine technology. More than 50 years later, Ron Huibers, presi- dent of Volvo Penta of the Americas, says the company remains 100 percent committed to its strategy of leveraging automotive gas en- gine technology as the basis for its ma- rine sterndrive product offerings. "We are continuing with what has been a proven platform," said Huibers. "We aren't making any hard left turns, but we are leverag- ing the engineering advances from the automo- tive industry into a sterndrive engine for today's boater. What people have enjoyed with Volvo Penta sterndrive engines with high reliability and good performance, they will continue to get with this next generation of engines." Huibers highlights how working with GM gives Volvo Penta a scale to create improved fuel efficiency, performance, torque, and consistent reliability. Huibers also notes these new en- gines come directly off the GM production lines at a rate of more than 5,000 per day. That brings au- tomotive quality control and econo- mies of scale to a sterndrive market that currently runs at about 32,000 units per year. "Over the past 100 years, the automo- tive-based engine has dominated the marine in- dustry, for good reason," said Huibers. "Although we all love this marine business, it's a relatively small industry – relative to the rest of the world that consumes [four-stroke] engines." Volvo Penta unveiled the first two models of its new lightweight, all-aluminum gas engines at the Marine Dealer Conference & Expo in No- vember. The 4.3-liter V6 engines, rated at 200 and 240 horsepower, are the first in what will be a complete line based on General Motors' Gen V technology. The company will roll out the full family of V6 and V8 engines during 2015 and 2016. "We are able to leverage the R&D and engi- neering resources of GM and benefit from their economy of scale to bring this impressive new technology into the marine industry," Huibers said. Gen V is the fifth-generation small block from GM since 1955 and provides increased technology offerings, among which include variable valve timing, which improves torque, especially at low end RPMs. Higher performance across all RPM ranges is now available with the new generation. The engines will be all aluminum, pro- viding a lighter engine with higher horsepower- to-weight ratios. The en- gines will also be freshwater cooled and include common rail direct fuel injection into the cylinders. This "What people have enjoyed with Volvo Penta sterndrive engines with high reliability and good performance, they will continue to get with this next generation of engines." — Ron Huibers, president of Volvo Penta of the Americas

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