Re: why are boat motors so expensive?
Ohh man. Not going to quote so much here just reply.
The best reply so far is "because we are capitalist"
As for 'your car doesnt spend the day at 5000rpm up hill.....umm I/O boats have automotive style engines that do just that.
As for 'an outboard is just like the engine and transmission' No its not. There are no multiple speed gear box in an outboard. Its more like an engine and rear axle gear combo.
Specialty item? not really, motor powered boats are older than motor powered cars. Like one said, a 30 friggin year old outboard for thousands?
I ran a proshop for GM in S.C. I installed a 572 Crate from GM in a 67. That crate motor is VERY limited and produced around 730HP (the one he chose) is hand built and was a complete package including intake, Carb, driveset. He paid 13K. That gets you what, a 125 hp outboard?
So why are outboards so expensive? Easy, if you want to play, you gotta pay. Because people PAY for them. Right now, because people are broke (for the most part) and the rest of the general public that has money are afraid to part with it, you can buy an entire boat for the price of the motor.
My dad just got back into boating. He has a 22' center console. It came with a 75hp and he wanted to up it to a 150. He was shocked at how expensive the outboards were. We found a well weathered boat for sale with a 125 on the back, switched the motors and sold the well weather boat for only 1K less than he paid for it.. So he went from a 70 to a 125 for a thousand bucks....
So if you are looking for the *trick* to outboards ^^^ there it is.
One more.. my dad as a 6hp Johnson that he bought new for a few hundred bucks about 35 years ago. The motor has hardly been used but works AWESOME. Its worth more now twice as much as he paid for it then. I told him to sale it but instead he uses it as a kicker on his 22'er.