Re: Chrysler outboards?
Chrysler outboards started out as "West Bend Manufacturing Company" outboards. West Bend was a US aluminium manufacturing company based in Wisconsin, well known for their pressure cookers. I guess they saw all the aluminium in outboards and figured it was a natural fit.
Chrysler wanted to pick up some aluminium manufacturing technology, so they bought up West Bend in the mid 60s. They got the outboard division with it and renamed them Chryslers. Quite a number were made for retailers, such as department stores. So you find Chryslers under many different brands - Viking, Montgomery Wards, etc. I think the ending of OMC's Gale division in '64 had a lot to do with it. The retailers needed a new supplier.
Chrysler was hard hit by the downturn in the American auto sector in the early 80s and had to be bailed out by the US government. Part of the deal they struck was they had to sell off the outboard devision which I understand was profitable at the time.
USMarine (marine conglomerate including Bayliner) picked up the devision and renamed it FORCE. Unfortunately lack of development, etc, allowed them to fall behind. Mercury picked it up in the early 90s and merged it with it's own line of outboards by the late 90s, then dropped the name. By that point the name FORCE was enjoying a bad reputation.
