Extreme Optimism

A picture taken at the Detroit Boat Show showing 14 Wilson Marine Sales cubicles ready to go to close deals on new boats (there are 7 on each side).

I had to look to try to imagine a boat dealer with even 14 salespersons, much less them all working on a deal at one time. Well, they do have 258 total boats in inventory and they do sell tons of pontoons plus have some high volume boats, including both Glastron and Bayliner. Still seems a bit much.

"build it they will come" ?

Steve said:

"build it they will come" ?

Click to expand...

Pontoon boats are big sellers in MI specially on the inland lakes (not so much on the Great Lakes). We have relatives at Canadian Lakes which I would swear is the pontoon boat capital of the world. They should call them powered patios. Not my dish of tea.

Donsan said:

Pontoon boats are big sellers in MI specially on the inland lakes (not so much on the Great Lakes). We have relatives at Canadian Lakes which I would swear is the pontoon boat capital of the world. They should call them powered patios. Not my dish of tea.

Click to expand...

Pontoon boats outsell other boats for pleasure boats for inland lakes by huge volumes. The lake we lived on in NC was a good example. At one time when I was young they were looked at much like station wagons are. But suddenly they became SUV's of the water.

When you look at it aren't SUV's today's version of the station wagon of 40 years ago?

They are, indeed, popular on the inland lakes, but I'll bet there has never been 14 sold at the same time from the same dealer ever.

If you took away all the pontoon boats and PWC's from the Detroit Boat Show, it could be held in a small gymnasium.

BandB said:

When you look at it aren't SUV's today's version of the station wagon of 40 years ago?

Click to expand...

Kinda, sorta but I think the minivan got that Oscar.

Donsan said:

Kinda, sorta but I think the minivan got that Oscar.

Click to expand...

Station wagon to minivan to SUV?

And for logical reasons, that families always need space. Space for the kids and family. Space to carry things. So they manufacturers find a different way to put that space in a vehicle. I'm sure many of today's SUV owners would never be caught dead in a station wagon. Yet they make larger and larger SUV's to be more like station wagons in utility.

In MI, the DMV still registers my Dodge Durango as a station wagon

IMO: Pontoon boats are great - so long as - you don't own one! Of course, party on another owner's pontoon is great fun. I love to wave at them as we fly past in our comfortable and extremely fuel efficient Crestliner "Stinger" o/b, tow behind runabout.

That said... I have noted there are faster pontoon boats coming out now. $50 to $80K will get ya in! Fuel at high cruising speeds is reported to be 1 to 2 nmpg. Our runabout gets 20 + nmpg at 25 knots and will do 40 knots WOT.

Pontoon boat just ain't my thang. There are plenty of em in SF Delta.

When We kept a boat on a corp lake in Kansas I saw 2 pontoons that were way above the normal ones on the lake. One had IO drive, thruhull exhaust with a injected 8.1 GM, 1st time I saw it we were out and I heard a go-fast at wot, I looked around for it and finally figured out it was a pontoon going faster than any I had ever seen. The 2nd was 32' to 36' with 3 -300 hp merc outboards, only saw it in its slip. Here is a link to a pontoon at the Lake of the Ozarks Shoot out - http://youtu.be/JiNJMwH46wg

Omg. That's nuts.

A question that bears asking, WHY??

Any excuse to go faster, never saw anyone hang a sail on on yet

Does welfare cover boat ownership? I heard Detroit was in the toilet economy wise!

Here's a pic from the boat show that I posted in the "interesting boats" thread. I wonder how many of these sold. In case you can't make out the price tag (or don't believe your eyes) it's $118,387.00 and no, that isn't a decimal point error.

River Cruiser said:

When We kept a boat on a corp lake in Kansas I saw 2 pontoons that were way above the normal ones on the lake. One had IO drive, thruhull exhaust with a injected 8.1 GM, 1st time I saw it we were out and I heard a go-fast at wot, I looked around for it and finally figured out it was a pontoon going faster than any I had ever seen. The 2nd was 32' to 36' with 3 -300 hp merc outboards, only saw it in its slip. Here is a link to a pontoon at the Lake of the Ozarks Shoot out - http://youtu.be/JiNJMwH46wg

Click to expand...

Only a matter of time before that boat goes end over end.

It's very easy to spend 50-60 on a pontoon boat these days.

windmill29130 said:

I heard Detroit was in the toilet economy wise!

Click to expand...

Exactly. That's why I thought 14 cubicles was such extreme optimism.
An extremely small market for 120K pontoon boats, I would think.

I have a pontoon boat that sits in front of my house all season long.

We use it a heck of allot more than we do our ocean going cruiser!

Pontoon boats are fantastic for what they are intended to do, which for us at least is a noce slow cruise around our lake.

I know people that can own anything they want and have these things just so they can go out to the lake (live on canals) and park for Sunday afternoon at the " swimmin hole".

Donsan said:

Kinda, sorta but I think the minivan got that Oscar.

Click to expand...

I agree the minivan was a great evolutionary development in design. It's too bad they became known as only for mom's. Since when did men stop needing to haul things around? And how many millions of male truck owners hardly ever use them as a truck.

But I see the SUV's as only in existance because they are vogue. Kind of a bastard vehicle. But if they are here 20 years from now I may have to take that back. Or are there long lasting fads?

I have never set foot on a pontoon boat but have seen lots of them out on the lakes and bays. They do seem like a nice way to be able to get family and friends out on the water.

Pontoon boats are great party boats for lakes. If I end up living near a lake in retirement, I'll definitely have one.

There will not be multiple 300HP OBs hanging on it!

manyboats said:

I agree the minivan was a great evolutionary development in design. It's too bad they became known as only for mom's. Since when did men stop needing to haul things around? And how many millions of male truck owners hardly ever use them as a truck.

Click to expand...

That's true, Eric. A lot if not most pickups seem to be bought these days primarily for the image. Like Harley-Davidson. According to the avid motorcyclists in my organization, absolutely crap motorcycles as motorcycles go but they have this Hell's Angels image every guy seems to want.

We actually haul stuff in and with our pickup but I also drive it to work most days, and on those times it's empty. It drives better than the 1987 BMW 635Csi I sold (along with a 1983 Ford F-250SC) to make room for the new truck. Problem with mini-vans is they're great for kids and little stuff but you can't load a whole stretch of rotten cedar fence and fence posts with concrete still on one end in them to haul to the dump.

But I see the SUV's as only in existance because they are vogue. Kind of a bastard vehicle. But if they are here 20 years from now I may have to take that back. Or are there long lasting fads?

Click to expand...

The modern SUV concept has been around since 1969 when Rover introduced the Range Rover. A departure from the Land Rover/Jeep/Toyota utility 4wds, the Range Rover was originally designed for the farmer or estate owner who needed a relativley rugged 4wd but also wanted something more comfortable and nice to drive to go to town, shopping, etc. To that end the Range Rover featured coil springs on both axles instead of leaf springs. To my knowledge, it was the first 4wd to use coils all around but I could be wrong on that. Like the Land Rover, the Range Rover has an aluminum body.

The Range Rover was a big success right off the bat--- the Louvre Museum in Paris even displayed one as an example of automotive aesthetics-- and it almost immediatly became a status vehicle albeit it a very rugged one. (A pair of Range Rovers were the first vehicles to drive the entire length of the Pan American Highway including crossing the infamous, roadless, Darien Gap between Panama and Columbia). The Range Rover inspired other companies to start developing their own similar concepts. .Toyota, for example, created the FJ55 Land Cruiser in the 1970s to compete with the Range Rover and there were others.

American manufacturers soon jumped in with the Chevy Blazer and Ford started growing the utility Bronco into a more comfortable vehicle. Jeep had their Waggoneer line.

I bought a new Land Rover Series III-88 in 1973. 1974 was the last year Land Rovers were imported to the US. The Range Rover had never been imported here or I probably would have bought one of them, too. (Range Rover North America began importing Range Rovers in fairly limited numbers in 1987. They caught on and the whole Range Rover/Discovery line has become a well-known marque in the US). I still have the Land Rover and many years after I bought it, it was finally joined by a Range Rover.

I started hearing the term SUV in, I think, the later 1980s or maybe even the early 90s. I have no idea whose marketing department first dreamt up that term for this type of vehicle but it caught on. The marketing folks didn't stop there, of course, and now we have Crossovers and SAVs (sports activity vehicles), and the name game goes on.

But the vehicle type that is today called an SUV has been around for 46 years.

Photos below are of the 1969 Range Rover (top) and a 1976 Toyota FJ55 Land Cruiser.

I always thought the International Scout 80 series from 1960 as the original SUV. Which drew at least some of its inspiration from the Willys Overland Jeepster of the late '40's early '50's.

Rover was undoubtedly a resounding commercial success but hardly the first.

CPseudonym said:

I always thought the International Scout 80 series from 1960 as the original SUV. Which drew at least some of its inspiration from the Willys Overland Jeepster of the late '40's early '50's..

Click to expand...

Possibly, but they were much more utilitarian than the Range Rover and the Landcruiser FJ55. The foreman of the ranch I worked on for a couple of summers as a kid in Colorado in the mid-60s had a Scout and it was pretty much a metal box on wheels. Nothing remotely luxurious or comfortable about it. The Jeepsters I've seen didn't seem much different albeit with "snazzy" styling.

Most of the 4wd publications I've read over the years credit the Range Rover with being the first of the "luxury" 4wds that eventually became known as SUVs. Not that those first Range Rovers were luxurious by today's standards, but I remember reading the brochure for the Range Rover in 1973 (I could get the sales brochure in the US but not the vehicle itself) and compared to all the other 4wds on the road at that time it was very upmarket.

Marin said:

Possibly, but they were much more utilitarian than the Range Rover and the Landcruiser FJ55. The foreman of the ranch I worked on for a couple of summers as a kid in Colorado in the mid-60s had a Scout and it was pretty much a metal box on wheels. Nothing remotely luxurious or comfortable about it. The Jeepsters I've seen didn't seem much different albeit with "snazzy" styling.

Most of the 4wd publications I've read over the years credit the Range Rover with being the first of the "luxury" 4wds that eventually became known as SUVs. Not that those first Range Rovers were luxurious by today's standards, but I remember reading the brochure for the Range Rover in 1973 (I could get the sales brochure in the US but not the vehicle itself) and compared to all the other 4wds on the road at that time it was very upmarket.

Click to expand...

Still all station wagons. Square them off to create space in the back and slip in another row of seats that can be there or not. Call it whatever necessary to fit the current naming. And we make fun of the drivers along the way but more and more sell, because they're practical. Of course none of us want to admit we buy practical. We own sports cars, but an SUV for when we actually need to carry things or people.

Here inland in FL we call pontoon boats Canal Patios , they work just great for that .