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Not relevant to Whalers at all, but Seven Marine's closing by new owner Volvo Penta Marine does show it to be another fatality to the Mercury-Yamaha outboard juggernaut, as was Evinrude. This leaves Suzuki as the only serious competitor to these two. Honda and Tohatsu are still there, but with insignificant market share except for the 3HP - 30HP 4-strokes Tohatsu makes in conjunction with their Mercury Joint Venture.
These huge, heavy and costly (and ugly) Seven Marine V-8 outboards never did attain much market share, and now the lesser HP V-8's of Mercury and Yamaha, plus the high HP Verados, are out performing them in both weight, rigging flexibility, service availability, and speed. So Seven Marine's market is disappearing. The same thing happened to Evinrude, on the lower side of the HP race, being limited to only 300HP and 2-stroke design.
That is sad news and the outboard industries took another blow with that news. Seven marine outboards were high end for sure and for the super rich owners and the top outboard hp on the market. The 627 cost like $100,000. There are boats that were designed for these outboards. And they look beastly.
Evinrude is as American as baseball and apple pie and the name being closed down by a Canadian Company burns by butt.
I doubt the closure had to do with the marketplace, i.e. Mercury or Yamaha.
Volvo has always been known for industry leading technology. It's movement to hybrid propulsion and electric has been expected.
It is not clear to this reader why they bought Seven Marine in the first place. I would guess there was an Seven Marine emerging technology Volvo thought it could purchase and leverage but realized it would not be practical.
I think we now know the real reason Volvo Penta suddenly closed Seven Marine and with no explanation.
Evidently the original founders of Seven Marine, people who had left Mercury to start up this high HP line of engines, got some inside information from contacts in Mercury that Mercury had a new V-12 600 HP 4 stroke engine in the works, with completely new steering technology.
So they put Seven Marine up for sale and found unsuspecting Volvo Penta as a buyer. Then, not long after the purchase, Volvo evidently got the same information, and figuring the new Mercury 600 would leave them in the dust, they suddenly dumped the engine line they had just bought, ahead of the Mercury announcement. This is normally not what buyers of a company do.
This is pure speculation on my part, but makes sense if you think about it. This new Mercury 600 caught the outboard marketplace by complete surprise, including Yamaha and Suzuki, who also have nothing to go up against it.
Along with Mercury's new hugely popular V-6 and V-8 4 stroke engines, and now the v-12's, Evinrude evidently saw the future also and decided to hang it up with ugly Gen-2 DFI 2-strokes that nobody was buying in any quantity.
