Back in the day, many small start up companies produced outboards using Victa, Hurricane and Villiers engines, bolted to legs produced by Ell-den, Clipper and a number of others. Examples include Mermaid, Waterboy, Searide, King, King Fisher, Atom, Gold Cheetah (lawn patrol engine), Clipper and a whole stack more. I think we had over 30 outboard manufacturers here at one stage!
The few that produced their own engines (sometimes using components sourced from overseas) are the stand outs in my opinion. For example Seasprite outboards were (originally) designed and built by the Australian Marine Engine Company, otherwise known as AMECO. These guys designed and built everything, cylinders, heads, crank cases, gearboxes, even their own carburettors. Every main component on a Seasprite outboard is numbered, so you can easily tell if it's been bastardised or rebuilt in the past etc.
If you pull down a Speed outboard, you'll find the Speed name embossed on the conrod ie part of the casting. How cool is that?
Anyway, back to Mermaid. So there's no confusion, Mermaid outboards were not made by Victa. As stated above, they were produced by Smithurst & Son Pty Ltd using either Victa or hurricane engines.
And as for Hurricane, well they never built a 7hp engine did they? There has been mention of an improved(higher revving) 180 or 185 but that produced 6hp only.
BTW, I'm still looking for parts to complete mine
