Today's Desert Storm Poker Run Street Party attendees got the first peek at the latest Eliminator Boats 255 Speedster, which is powered by an Ilmor Marine MV8 570 engine coupled with Ilmor's One-Drive system.

https://www.speedonthewater.com/elim...m-street-party

I'm really liking the white and black!

Damn that is good looking! And an Ilmor Blackhawk!

The choice of propulsion system was inspired by the Black Hawk drive. That wasn't exactly a big engineering win for Mercury was it?

I'm all for new tech....but would you check this drive/motor combo given "other" choices.

Valid point but for certain applications, such as a smaller tunnel, I could see this drive offering better performance than a bravo and big blocks have withstood the test of time but the LS platform has many advantages. I would like to hear results first but assuming they are positive I would check this over a 565 / bravo

I don't know about the drive but yes on the LS based motor, at least its a little newer design.

Love it!

I guess that is what I am implying. Would you want your brand new boat to be the test bed? No reason to believe it won't prove to be a great option, I personally wouldn't be signing up for hull #1 at today's prices.

Okay, I am confused...this says all of the 255 Speedsters except one have been outboard powered...? But I thought this was a new boat...as in a new hull? Or is it just the first with the Ilmor drive?

This is just the first Ilmo package in a 255, and the first installation of this new drive in any boat. I think it looks like a great setup, and I'm interested to hear how it performs. For smaller, single engine boats, it seems like the perfect power package. Hopefully they've kept pricing decent, which imo would be in the $60k OEM price range for that motor/drive package ($35k motor/$25k drive). If they want much more than that, they're creeping up into the Merc 700/#6 drive package pricing, which is a big step up. They've also got to be priced competitively with the Merc 450R ($50k), as I would think that would give similar performance on a smaller, single engine boat. I was really impressed that Eliminator's 27 Speedster open bow ran 95mph with a single 450R! Kudos to Eliminator for doing some "outside of the box" builds lately.