Mercury Debuts 600-hp Outboard

Trade Only Today, Charlie Levine, Thursday, Feb. 11, 2020—Mercury Marine introduced a 600-hp Verado earlier this week during an exclusive media event at Lake X, the company’s test facility in Florida. The 7.6-liter, V-12 engine weighs 1,260 pounds and has two innovations that Mercury calls industry firsts: a steerable gearcase and an automatic two-speed transmission.

“With boats continuing to grow bigger and performance expectations continuing to rise, boaters have been asking for a better, more capable high-horsepower solution to meet their needs. The V-12 Verado is Mercury’s answer,” said Chris Drees, Mercury Marine president in a statement. “This is a remarkable engine that will change the future of boating.”

The V-12 Verado was designed expressly for big boats that require big outboards.

“The solution to powering these larger boats has been adding more outboards, but we felt a better solution was a higher-power outboard that could optimize cruise speed and top end,” said Jeff Becker, Mercury’s outboard category manager for engines over 75 hp. “These are big, heavy boats, but owners have the same performance expectations as [they do with] smaller boats.”