I think OMC felt the jet ski market world go the same way as the S/N market. They had already lost a ton of money in S/N and didn't want to repeat that. Remember in 1969 there were 113 manufacures of S/N's. By 1975 there was 3.
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The Yickifigions were entering the US market with everything from steel to cars to bikes and selling them dirt cheap to break the market. It made no sense that we could ship iron ore and taconite rigth past the steel cities we had on the great lakes, then to Japan to mill it, and ship back CHEAPER than we could do the whole job here.....Some blame the unions, but there was way they could have that much of a price drop without getting funny on price.....
I also remember OMC to have a 6 wheel drive, cable steer ATV about 1968, and i think they went dead on theirs about 1971...
The ATV's, the trackster's there are still some runnig around here, I think Gary Johnson has one, across the street from me they cleared 20 acres to build a school, they found one out in the shrubs we pulled it out.
As far as Jet Skis, OMC didn't get in the Jet skis, However, they were going to get into the personal watercraft market. We had prototype hulls and I built the two prototype engines, they were 56cubers laid on their face with BN carbs on them, they were gonna be marketed as the "Shockwave" this was like in 93',94', but they never made it to market
The vehicle had 2 S/N tracks, not 6 wheels. It also had a very sloped front end ala a tank so it could climb over obstacles. It was made by Cushman, an OMC company at the time. They got out of that business due to a law suit where a doctor going down hill decided to throw it in reverse and the whole vehicle and doctor went *** over tea kettle, killing said doctor. His wife sued and won a ton of money for bad design and failure to warn ??? An interesting side bite; Ralph Evinrude got one of the first units and took it to his Fl home. He took it out in the front yard and had a ball spinning cookies etc. The result was a new sod job for his front lawn. Francis Langford, his wife, was incensed and the vehicle went back to Cushman.
That's funnier than hell John! I thought they had 6 wheels like our Sidwinders and my Max did, but you would know best. I thought the cable steer kind of sucked too. Many of those things like the Terra Tiger would flip going down hill if you did stupid stuff with them....
Oh well, end of an era....
Wayne:
I keep looking at the picture of Barry Woods above and I can't figure it out. To my knowledge, the first time Barry drove a rotary was at Provo, Aug '73. The other pictures and story seem to be from Galvaston. It would appear to me, the picture and story don't match. I distintly remember Woods at Provo, as he lead the race until he broke. When he got out of the boat after being towed in, his comment to Jack Leek was "what a ride!"
John