Super Swede ... Lars Strom

[Lars Strom]

Ron Hill wrote:

Hey Lars...Tell us how you made MILLIONS OF U.S. DOLLARS while living in Sweden.....(LEGALLY)!!!!///

Ha, ha Ron..,

I am getting to that, but it started 1982 and went on for four years.

My good relationship as a dealer and my succesful Racing with OMC made this re/export to the
USA possible.

Many thousands of outboards was shipped back to the USA, and it was legal,
but not legal if you read the stickers OMC put on the Evinrude boxes sent
to Europe.

It is a long and interesting story but sensative, many people was upset for
some time and when I get to year 1982 of the Racing stories I will include
that.

Hi Dave,

If you mean my take on OMC going out of business..??

Started a story on a Swedish forum about just that..
I call the thread..

"From first in outboards and biggest in the world to bankruptcy"..

That is a long "thing" to do and maybe some people are going to be upset if they read my take..

I can tell you that David D. Jones hired me late 1998 to do some work overseas to try to save OMC.
I made a 6 or 7 page plan after lots of research and presented to the OMC management..but OMC was already out of money early 1999.
On top of that I did not like the people that had invested in OMC..
Again..need to be little careful about that..but here is a copy of a letter from David D. Jones. The OMC President and CEO.
Jepp..I parked my American Eagle in front of the building at Sea Horse Drive under our visit.

[Ron Hill]

Lara, you have quite a following here on BRF. I'm sure your readers are like me. We'd love to hear your store about OMC.

[Rotary John]

I'm sure Lars has a lot more detail, but when Stang ran the company in the 70's, they made record profits and sales. When the bean counters took over, it went down hill and never recovered.

[dave hensel]

didnt mean to put you on the spot. in your tread a while back i thought you said you would give your opinion on the subject. but maybe this is not the place. love the storys & the pics wish more racers would do this.

[Lars Strom]

Here is some I wrote on Jackie Wilsons thread..

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The OMC pat to bankruptcy started already in the mid seventies by making enormous
mistakes in Europe.

I remember when OMC told the world 1986 they made the biggest deal in the history of the Marine business..signing a contract to deliver all the stern drive power to Bayliner for
3 years..(87-88-89).

Well.. some time later Brunswick told the world they made the biggest Marine business deal..
The purchase of the Bayliner factory and later Sea Ray..
OMC had the possibility to do that before Brunswick but did not at that time, see the need for that..

Many poor decisions where made at the Headquarter in Waukegan.
They hired a President from the washing machine business and he wasted many like an old washing machine used water..

Poor quality and not keeping up with Yamaha was another reason..
In many ways Brunswick was smarter and made better decisions.

I told OMC for many years ago to team up with Merc to fight the Japs..
Not even on the map..
...instead
Merc signed up with Yamaha to fight OMC..
and maybe that is Mercury's biggest mistake ever..Time will tell..
Now Yamaha is slowly taking over the outboard business.
In Europe and the rest of the world ...Yamaha has already done that..

Penske was so close to purchase OMC but Soros/Green Marine and other investors could not agree about a deal..

I was asked by David Jones (the OMC - President) 1998 to come up with something to save the Northern Europe market..
Was hired as a consultant and did lots of work..but no money to do what needed to be done..

I still love the outboard business..but in a way I am glad I left some years ago..

Hi again,

Well, 1977 was a year when OMC Racing had the first setback from Japanese outboards slowly taking over
in Europe.

The year before, OMC told all the distributors in most countries in Europe that OMC is going to
take over.

For example, Evinrude in Sweden was imported by Huzells, and I had a very good relationship with Huzells
and they gave me lots of money to race Evinrude Outboards.
Johnson had AGB in Sweden and they where good for drivers using Johnson outboards.

This is in my opinion the first really big mistake OMC made, and was the start for lots of bad mistakes,
that sadly put the them out of business later, as we all know.

Huzells owner Bill Huzell was really upset with OMC taking his business away after 10 years of hard work to distribute
Evinrude in Sweden, so he went to Japan and took over Suzuki outboards for Sweden.
His old Evinrude dealers in Sweden liked Billy, and they all signed up to have Suzuki as a second
brand.

AGB did the same thing, and grabbed the Mariner Brand for Sweden.

I can still not understand that OMC did not think better, Billy Huzell was a rich smart business man and his
top priority was to make Suzuki Outboards very strong in Sweden now, and that's how the price war
started in Europe.

Remember, OMC did the same thing in most countries overseas.

I was loyal OMC, and stayed as an exclusive Evinrude dealer, but 90 % of the Evinrude dealers
was now Evinrude/Suzuki and on the Johnson side Johnson/Mariner.

Back to Racing,

1977 was now the first year Evinrude/Johnson was distributed in Sweden by OMC Sweden and the policy
was, NO RACING and everything had to go true Paul Kalb at OMC's European headquarter in Brugge, Belgium,
and his budget was cut in half.

My relationship with Paul Kalb (Racing boss Europe) was not so good, he had his favorite drivers and I always won over them.
1977 was also the year when Molinari started Racing for OMC, but Renatos deal was with OMC USA,
not Belgium.

I had a brand new Mod 50/F3 Molinari Boat on order and an Evinrude engine for that boat, but after a meeting
with the BIG man at Volvo Penta, Sweden we made a deal and I got my biggest check ever (at that time) to
Race Volvo Penta/Konig in Mod 50/F3 1977.

I went to Como, to pick up my new boat, and to Clerici to pick up a second boat if the Molinari Boat
did not work with the Volvo.

Direct to Dieter Konig, West Berlin to install engines and after that Uppsala, Sweden where
the Volvo Penta outboard factory was located, and Gert Lowisin was living next door.
My deal with Volvo was to have Gert Lowisin 24/7 to help me that year in racing, and Gert was a very
good man to have on your side.

This was a very interesting year for me in Racing, and I raced more or less every weekend somewhere
in Europe, and when "that thing" on the transom stayed together I Won, but most of the times it came a part.

Believe it or not, but I raced Paris 6 hours with a Konig..... and was leading with many laps after
4 hours, when I hit something and sank.... not the engine this time.
We used 50/50 Gasoline/Methanol and it did not take away to many horsepower.

The Sprint World Champion Ship OE that year was in Brodenbach, and OMC was not very happy
with Lars racing a Volvo and Jenkins Racing a Archimedes. (Same thing)

Michael Werner was the home favorite with Mercury's secret OE engine with the EFI box.

OMC at that time did not have the speed, and where using the "Gas in a bottle" ( laughing gas), to make it better,
but the officials of the Race said it was not legal, so OMC never raced and filed a protest.

I was fighting hard with Werner and won one heat, he the next etc. and it was down to the final heat
I had to win on a better time and I did, but then the Race officials said that my heat was 2/10 of a second
slower than Werner's so he was now the World Champ. (at that time they used stop watches)

I don't now if it was right or wrong, but a week later UIM made a decision about the OMC protest and the Race
was not a official World Championship Race anymore.

There is many stories about my year with Volvo/Konig and I can go back to that later.
When it comes to money, it was a very good year but I did not get the Trophy's I wanted so after Paris
6 Hours I told Volvo that, I am out.

Volvo did not have a problem with that and late 1978, the Volvo Penta outboards
was history.

Not many people know that, but Volvo Penta Outboards was the first one the Japanese Outboards
put out of business.

Well, maybe they killed them self with poorly designed production outboards.....


One more thing,

My real name is Lars Strom, in Sweden your nick name for Lars is Lasse, but over here Lassie is a dog,
so my name is now Lars.....

Sorry, one more thing.

I am going to stick with my plan to tell my Racing Story's year by year, that is the only way to remember
correct, so next time I am back to Lappenranta, Finland 1973.

[Lars Strom]

My racing and selling outboards had a big connection..
No racing without selling outboards..and no outboard sales without racing..

This is a interesting letter..
1980 OMC slowly started to understand that they done the wrong thing in Europe by taking over the distributorship in every country.
Billy Huzell was now selling lots of Suzuki outboards instead of Evinrude.
So I got a visit by Robert F. Wallace from OMC in July of 1980

This was also the start for OMC to cut prices in Europe..specially in Sweden to keep the market shares.

Well..My favorite President.. Ronald Reagan came to power and made the dollar really strong..
I was paying way less dealer net for Evinrude in Sweden than US dealers..
(In Swedish currency)
That is how my export back to US started in 1982..

My little outboard business in Stockholm find a way to sell over 10,000 large OMC outboards back to the US over a few years..
Can not give all the details but the engines was sold in California and Florida.
This made many US dealers mad/angry at OMC..and lots of fun and interesting things happen..
We did not stop with only OMC..lots of Mariner outboards also find the way back to the US..

[Powerabout]

I remember sitting by and watching both Merc and OMC hand the business to the Japs

To Merc and OMC in 70's and 80's ' how about a jet ski'
answer, "No they are too noisy and will be banned everywhere in the world soon"

To Merc and OMC how about a full shift left hand gearbox
Answer, "no demand, cant be done"

To Merc and OMC "how about a decent slim control box with twin trim in one handle"

Can remember what they said about that

Yam outsmarted them by going propshaft rated early so every 115 Yam went better then every Merc OMC 115 etc...how simple was that!

Then OMC made the Sea drive which I did and still think was fantastic, lots of clever design in those.
Came to install my first pair and found out you had a bore a hole for the trim pump so essentially the engine height is fixed..you dumb bastards.....

Answer "we gave the product to the sterndrive department to develop"

I dont think the Japs were smarter they obviously just employed disgruntled OMC and Merc staff OR listened to their customers

Back to you Lars

PS Renault owns a big chunk of Nissan so why not an outboard brand doing the same..whoops they overheard me, Yamaha owns a chunk of Selva

[Lars Strom]

I know that lots of people don't think the OMC problem started in Europe..
and here is my take on that...

When OMC more or less gave Europe to the Japs 1977..and later started the price war
overseas to keep the market shares..it back fired here in the US.

Al the "gray market" engines shipped back to CA and FL.. made lots of US dealers upset with the OMC price policy..
OMC forgot that there customer was the dealer..not the final/end user.

I remember Pompano Beach Marine Center "PBMC" for many years was a big
exclusive Johnson dealer..

The low price "gray market" OMC from Europe sold by Scan Marine in South Florida made the owner of PBMC (his name is Johnson and we was later neighbors in Pompano Beach) so mad he started to sell Yamaha.
Mr. Johnson was now selling lots of Yamaha on the Grady White boats and dropped
Johnson outboards..and are still today Yamaha only..

Many, many more old OMC exclusive US dealers did the same thing as PBMC.
OMC slowly lost all the good dealers..and without good dealers a factory goes down..

Jepp..thats me and Carina sitting in the car outside Scan Marine (the gray market head quarter) at Federal Highway, Pompano Beach 1986..

[swmjake]

So Lars - sounds like you have some of the same thoughts about what happened to OMC that I do. I went to test at OMC in the early 80's and had access to engineering. I saw over 10 small Honda motors in the engineering warehouse. I was very familiar with them since my dad had been a dealer for several years. Great little motors and they ran almost as well as the current 4-Stroke engines. I expected that OMC was going to head that direction and years later was surprised that they still had no 4-Stroke engines. When I bothered to aquire about it - I was told that the dictate from the top was the OMC was committed to the 2-stroke engine and only the 2-stroke engine. There was that "Head in the sand" mentality along with the other items you mentioned and the list goes on.

That said - whom would you blame most of OMC's demise on? - Just one name.

[John Schubert T*A*R*T]

So Lars - sounds like you have some of the same thoughts about what happened to OMC that I do. I went to test at OMC in the early 80's and had access to engineering. I saw over 10 small Honda motors in the engineering warehouse. I was very familiar with them since my dad had been a dealer for several years. Great little motors and they ran almost as well as the current 4-Stroke engines. I expected that OMC was going to head that direction and years later was surprised that they still had no 4-Stroke engines. When I bothered to aquire about it - I was told that the dictate from the top was the OMC was committed to the 2-stroke engine and only the 2-stroke engine. There was that "Head in the sand" mentality along with the other items you mentioned and the list goes on.

That said - whom would you blame most of OMC's demise on? - Just one name.

Jim Chapman