The History of Mercury Marine

A young engineer by the name of Carl Kiekhaefer, with the financial help of his father, bought a dying outboard motor manufacturing company. As part of the assets he inherited 300 defective outboards, rejected by a large mail order retailer. With a small crew he rebuilt the motors and resold them to the mail order company. The engines performed so well that the buyer placed an order for more. Soon a second firm asked him to design and build an alternate firing twin cylinder model. The Kiekhaefer Company was in business.

In 1940 outboards were not reliable, so Carl developed features offering quick, powerful, and dependable power. All this was part of a new vision for outboards. He called his new engines-Mercury.

In 1940, at the New York Boat Show, he sold 16,000 motors. In 1947 he introduced a 10-hp model that outperformed the competition's engines at twice the horsepower. The first four-cylinder inline, two-cycle, 40-cubic inch engine producing 40hp, it was introduced in 1948, exceeding its advertised rating of 25hp.

In 1961, Kiekhaefer merged with Brunswick and all through the '70s they set new standards. In 1996, Mercury introduced the 200hp, Opti-Max direct fuel-injected, two-stroke outboard. This greatly improved fuel economy, offered smoother running, and reduced hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions that exceeded the 2006 government standards.

In 1998 the late Carl Kiekhaefer was inducted into the Motorsport Hall of Fame of America. Mercury is now the largest division of Brunswick and has facilities across the U.S. and throughout the world, with over 6000 employees and over 7000 dealers. Mercury Marine is the world's leading manufacturer of marine propulsion systems.

Mercury's engineering technology has exploded this year with the introduction of the Verado; the world's most powerful four-stroke outboard. It features unequalled torque and acceleration, unmatched reliability, and incredibly quiet, with dramatically reduced vibration.

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