Mercury Marine
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| Division (Parent company: Brunswick Corporation) | |
| Industry | Marine engine manufacturer |
| Founded | 1939 |
| Headquarters | Fond du Lac, Wisconsin |
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Key people
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Carl Kiekhaefer |
| Website | www.mercurymarine.com |
Mercury Marine, founded in 1939 as Kiekhaefer Mercury, is a division of the Brunswick Corporation. It is based in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. The company manufactures marine engines and snowmobiles.
Mercury Marine's primary business is outboard motors. Mercury Outboards, 30 Hp and less, are made by Tohatsu in Japan. Mercury Marine builds 40, 50 and 60 horsepower outboard motors in Suzhou, China. Mercury also manufactures engines over 75 horsepower at its facility in Fond du Lac in Wisconsin.
Mercury also makes the MerCruiser line of sterndrives (inboard/outboard drives) and inboard motors. Mercury Racing is the company's division for racing engines tailored for power and speed.
The Kiekhaefer Mercury company began in 1939, when engineer Carl Kiekhaefer purchased a small outboard motor company in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Kiekhaefer's original intention for the Kiekhaefer Corporation was to make magnetic separators for the dairy industry. The purchase included 300 defective outboard motors. Kiekhaefer and a small staff of employees rebuilt the motors and sold them to Montgomery Ward, a mail-order company. The motors were much improved, so the buyer purchased more. Kiekhaefer designed motors that withstood the elements better than his competition and called the motor Mercury (taking advantage of the "Mercury" Motor Car popularity at the time) wilst the adopting the logo of Roman god Mercury.
Kiekhaefer took more than 16,000 orders at the 1940 New York Boat Show.
World War II changed the corporate climate, and Kiekhaefer sought a government contract to design two-man air-cooled chainsaws. Army engineers had been unable to design a lightweight motor. Kiekhaefer designed a new lightweight chainsaw in 2 months. The Kiekhaefer powered chainsaw was able to cut through a 24-inch (610 mm) green log in 17 seconds, while it took the nearest competitor 52 seconds. Mercury was awarded the contract, and was the world's largest chainsaw manufacturer by the end of the war.
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