Word: outboard
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Sears, Roebuck promoted a package of a 12-ft. fiber-glass or aluminum boat, 7½h.p. outboard engine and 600-lb. -capacity auto trailer. Price: $477, with only $48 down. Rhode Island's Pearson Corp. showed off its 28-ft., six-berth auxiliary sloop, Peerless Triton, priced at $9,750, and Cape Cod Shipbuilding exhibited its 23-ft. sloop-rigged Marlin cruising sailboat, which has done well in midget ocean-racing. For those who want to use boats as homes, Evinrude motors displayed a prototype expand-at-will, fiberglass, aluminum and wood houseboat that floats on pontoons...
...which sleeps two in an enclosed cabin. Price: $1,987. The French, taking part in the show for the first time, displayed sailboats ranging from the 13½-ft. Vaurien at $495 to the 18-ft. Corsaire at $1,975. West Germany also made its first invasion, enticed the outboard set with the 19-ft. Graves Hummel cruiser. It sleeps five, weighs only 620 lbs., speeds up to 37 m.p.h. on a 50-h.p. engine. Price: $1,899, f.o.b. New York...
Competing with foreign craftsmen, many a U.S. builder cut his own prices. Lone Star lightened the weight of its best-selling 14-ft. Malibu outboard by 10%, lightened the price by $100, down to $525. Enginemakers also trimmed prices and weight, switched to aluminum and fiber glass to get more horsepower per pound. McCulloch Corp., the No. 3 outboard-motor maker (after Outboard Marine and Kiekhaefer) cut prices of its Scott motors as much as 10%. Kiekhaefer lopped about 5% off two of its Mercury motor prices...
Boat sellers also freely borrowed selling tactics from the automen, reminded potential customers that most banks give boat loans as easily as auto loans. They also talked up trade-ins as a selling aid. Last year, when outboard motor sales jumped 24% to a record $254 million, dealers took old models as trade-ins on close to half of their new sales...
Like the automakers, the motorboat makers are shifting away from yesteryear's jukebox styling. The 1959 models have toned-down colors, trimmed-down fins, less chrome. There are also fewer extra-cost gadgets. Said President Sherwood Egbert of the Outboard Motor Manufacturers' Association: "Instead of bringing out a huge array of new accessories, we have settled down to making our product more reliable, cheaper to operate...