No 300 XS @ the show as of yesterday.. A 250 only..

High performance stern wheel drive system with titanium alloy replaceable paddles. These packages will be available from Mercury racing on a special order only basis. They will only be offered with either a transversely mounted 850 or 1075 powerplant.

Paddlewheels! The original surface drives!

yeah, I know that i am not Mr. Buckly, or whoever it is they got running the show these days, but last year at the consumer race outboards seminar, in Atlanta, they explained that emissions is playing a major role in future product development and that it is also why the lineup was reduced to at the time three engines, the 200XS, the 2.5 XS, and the 250XS, all of the optimax family. this is a company that has really changed in the past five years, basically denouncing two cycle engine technology and promoting 100 percent the verado family. i mean yes the six hundred pound plus verado will defiantly make a boat sit lower in the water than a three hundred fifty pound optimax. but when it comes to performance a 275 verado actually pulls more torque and power on the propshaft dyno than the old 300 promax. what we have to remember is there is a ten percent fudge factor when labeling an engine for advertised horsepower. i would also like to See a couple more big horsepower opti`s before they kill the line-up but i just don`t see it happening with the way that this company has postured itself. remember they spent 100 million and ten years in research and development before verado one left the Assembly line, this is the technology that they want making headlines. but who really knows, i mean when you talk to these guys they are so cryptic because of the confidentiality agreements they have to sign, it could be that all the hinting they do is really just their way of using disinformation to throw us and the competition off their scent. this time next week we will all be telling each other how we knew all along that they were going to do what they did. i will change my statement about the big verado to read rumored because thats all it really is. the other items however i know to be facts.

What they will NOT be introducing is affordable pricing....

Is there such a thing ?

beat me to it - the top secret $100,000 700hp motor (that any engine shop could build for 1/3 as much)

Yes, just as I put in my first post and LT has said there will be a new very sweet drive and motor package in the 39 MTI in the water at the Mariott. I think maybe an ACE in the hole for them.

So the line up is 525, 600, 700, 850, 1075 ????

i was just told abou this last week by merc reps.

So, when and where is the press conference? Usually they do one on Thursday @ the show, has this been changed??