BRP recently acquired three boat building companies, ALUMA-CRAFT, MANITOU, and QUNTREX. In their presentation they showed concept images of three boats, one from each of their boat building companies, as they would appear with a fully integrated outboard engine:
The images above are not actual photographs, based on comparison to identical images which appear to be photographs showing E-TEC G2 engines powering those boats. The inference is the above three images are concept drawings of how BRP will be integrating their GHOST conecept engines into their own boat brands.
Based on the concept images, the integrated engine is still fundamentally an outboard engine, that is, the engine is not contained inside the boat's hull interior space. Instead, the engine appears to be substantially reduced in vertical height and mounted to the hull transom in a manner that integrates the engine and its mount into the hull. Based on the representation of the deck above the engine appearing to be separated into a hatch, I infer that if the engine is tilted up, the rear deck that normally covers the engine is also raised.
The goal for PROJECT GHOST is to provide more usable space in the deck area with an unseen and integrated engine architecture. BRP expects this to result in a high impact on the market with from functionality and increased layout space. The GHOST engine architecture will result in
- › Flexibility in layouts
- Open rear access
- Outboard completely out of sight
No time line for the introduction of the GHOST project engines was indicated in the presentation. The presentation is published on the BRP investor relations website and can be downloaded and viewed from:
http://ir.brp.com/static-files/4158acfd-80cd-482d-a657-29bd8420c6d8