Home › Forum › Ask A Member › Firestone 7.5 & 10hp outboards › Re: Firestone 7.5 & 10hp outboards
While I understand where you are coming from, I don’t feel that is a fair statement for all the Scott motors from 1946 to 1969. The motors were not cheap, most had higher retail costs than their competitors and Scott billed themselves as a superior and innovative product. Even the off-brand Firestone and Corsairs were not "bargain basement" items in the early 1950s such as the contemporary Elgin and Clinton motors were. Scott was a small outfit when compared to OMC and, as this post outlines, clearly missed things in their engineering and designs.
Certainly the case can be made that through 1953 they were on par with all the other makers: OMC, Mercury, Champion in terms of engineering, design and quality. (Even OMC had their duds in the late 40s and early 50s – the 3.3 Sportwin, Zephyr and Johnson SD being three that I don’t feel are representative of the bulk of their products) And the Scott motors through 1953 are just as long lasting as any other maker – just go to any outboard meet today and look at all the 3.6, 5hp and 7.5hp ones you can buy and will still run!
When the Bail-A-Matic was introduced it was a big turning point, both good and bad. While it was heralded as a huge innovation and blessing to the huge number of people with leaky wooden boats, (Which was most everyone!), they also tried to keep things light and stay competitive in pricing and that led to castings that were thin and easily broken, flimsy cowls, etc…. Then people started to have service issues with the BAM and that combination definitely hurt their reputation. And we have not discussed that Scott never spent time or money on corrosion resistance, a major shortcoming for those of us on the coasts – the largest majority of boaters. I guess because they were in Minneapolis salt water wasn’t something they thought much about! (I have one note from the mid 50s that they tested in salt water somewhere in Long Island – my guess is the exec’s wanted a Montauk fishing trip!) No doubt this is the era and products that many feel were cheap and flimsy.
Yet at the same time their 3cyl motors were way ahead of the competition in design, something that took 10 to 20 years for other makers to all eventually emulate. But again, a look at the service bulletins Scott issued in the late 50s and early 60s shows that they often used the customer as their design testing program, issues with the electrics, linkages and fuel systems were very common. Having read through hundreds of pages of service bulletins they do not appear to have been out to cheat anyone, they simply didn’t have the testing resources that OMC and (by the 1960s) Mercury had to work out the bugs. And I won’t get into the low-profile Fishing Scott motors since I personally despise them… However, within a few years both OMC and later Chrysler both came out with low-pro motors to match what Scott did in 1960.
As to why Scott/McCulloch didn’t last, a bit of research will show it didn’t have anything to do with the products. Frankly, the bulk of the early 60s Scott products were no worse than their Mercury or West Bend counterparts in quality or engineering. The fact is that Bob McCulloch (and the company directors) simply lost interest in that part of the company. He ended up making more money in the oil business and with his land development of Lake Havasu, than he ever could dream of making in outboards. It is obvious that by the mid 1960s they simply let Scott die on the vine – moving London Bridge became the focus and not building outboards – even the power equipment line started to fade then. Too bad because there were some interesting and highly innovative outboard products in the wings like the Ox diesel and the unusual R-120 supercharged radial. Seen the info on the new Mercury diesel?