State of the Industry, 2012: Part II—Scott Porter
 

Jason Johnson's second installment, http://speedonthewater.com/in-the-ne...tt-porter.html.

That's not Scott Porter. That is Allan Harper, from 2 1/2 Men.....

:lolhit::drink:

If you have never met Scott, try to make it a point to do so at one of the larger boat shows. A super-nice and approachable guy, as is the rest of the family that owns Formula.

Matt - What's with the short interview? Scott's got a lot more interesting and perceptive insight than that!

He had to get back on the set......Can't keep Ashton waiting...

Chuck, it ain't the size of the interview ...

And there are seven more coming. Questions for all are slightly to significantly different.

As for all you characters with the "resemblance" comments, you guys are bad. Really good, but bad.

Matt. Thanks for all the great articles.

Especially after the recent 353 thread...we all were looking for more info on the fastech line. How many were sold last year. Orders for this year.

My guess is formula has nothing good to say about the 15 year old fastech so instead talked about the fx line that 98% of oso would never buy.

Never quite sure how to read tone online ... it's easy to get wrong so I won't. However, according to Porter, Formula sold three 382s in 2011 (Ilmor-Powered 38-Footer is Formula’s Third 382 FASTech This Year, http://speedonthewater.com/new-boats...this-year.html) and in article earlier in the year on speedonthewater.com he said that the 353 had seen the most interest of anything in the FASTech line.

I can tell you, because I interviewed him for the story I linked to above, that he was encouraged by the sales of the 382, as was Paul Ray of Ilmor who considered getting Ilmor 725s into one of them a big deal.

So the FASTech line exists and will continue to. Could it use some updating stylistically? Probably. But that's not why sales slumped in the past three years. Across the board, sales of production built performance boats, as well as custom performance boats for most builders, have slumped. Recession.

I must respectfully disagree with you in regard to interest in the performance-boat community in the Formula FX Sun Sports. You could make a case that the Sun Sport has become for Formula what center consoles have become for a lot of other go-fast boat builders—and the primary buyers for both are former and current go-fast boat owners.

Plus, that video of a 400SS tearing along at 70 mph with Ilmor power has been one of the most watched videos on this site. So there must be some interest out there.

No tone here. But I and others have that problem a lot. Thanks for not assuming.

Honestly I am always excited when I see you post a new article.

I will try to start adding smiley faces in my post ....just hard to use this smart phone!

I understand where you are coming from and think formula has done great with the crossovers they offer. Center consoles and crossover sport cruisers are not in the same category as offshore boats to me. I always wanted a 400ss/black thunder/45 Excalibur but went with 2 boats instead...and love it!

Yes the 400ss Ilmor boat is sweet! Just like fast Sunseekers and Pershings. Still says nothing about the fas tech line.

In most cases once someone moves from a Go-Fast to a crossover they eventually end up in a Nice cruiser. Rarely do you see cruiser owners wanting to move into a Go-Fast, unless the cruiser is older. The performance boat community owners who move to these types of boats "want" to be a powerboater, but never will be again. Unless they own multiple boats.

We're definitely seeing a major shift in the industry. Center consoles and cruisers, new and used, replacing go-fast boats or, in the best case, being added as second (or even first) boats.

I don't believe the high-performance powerboat market is dead—not by a long shot. But will it ever recover to former levels, especially on the production model side? Doubtful, and for one big—and probably good—reason: The days of people using their over-inflated value homes as ATMs are done. Yes, the credit pendulum has probably swung too far in the other direction, but there was a time, and it wasn't that long ago, that someone who could get a $250,000 loan for a go-fast boat, even though, realistically speaking in terms of income and assets, he had no business getting that loan in the first place.