Posted a new thread, but just in case any of you missed it...

https://speedonthewater.com/new-boat...s-in-nashville

Straight out of the SOTW story!
And Mercury Racing has plenty of 450R outboards right now available for order and delivery. According to Stuart Halley, the company's general manager, there are "literally hundreds" of finished 450Rs boxed and ready to ship.

I also confirmed this through David Foulkes, the CEO of Brunswick.

Is the 450R in the same price range as a 600 SCI engine/drive package?

Can't answer that & with absolutely zero knowledge about how much R&D Mercury has put into this new offering or how they came up w/ the pricing of the new 450R a part of me believes they are priced where they are b/c they know the interest level, what the market will bear and that they are still less expensive and far better supported than Seven Marine.
While Mercury cares about the market share they compete w/ Yamaha for I think they also know that both the 400R & new 450R are superior offerings to the Yamaha equivalents.
No different than some boaters are Mercury guys thru & thru, the same holds true for Yamaha's they have their own following of boaters & boat manufacturers who probably can't be swayed regardless of the application.

Strictly one mans $.02 & I could be way off but how I see it.

$54-64k for the 450R vs $34k for the 400R that is a lot of money for 50hp!

It's more about the torque than the 50 HP. 82 mph in the gigantic 59 Cig is more than impressive.

330K to outfit Tirrannasouras

Sooooooo Mark, did you go back to the well to outfit that new boat of yours? :D

Knowing Bullhead I would suspect his delivery slot had this already included in his ordering decision. And rightfully so. Looking forward to seeing some of these run.