SEMA 2019 Day 4

[SuperBuickGuy]

When Mercury Marine was developing the original ZR1 they also had a relationship with Yamaha as this was the very early development of the outboard 4-stroke development.
I worked as a contractor for Merc marine at the time, and my Dad worked in the foundry for a zillion years.
That said, I think the chances that Merc 4 cam head will be bolted to the top of a corvette flat-plane engine is unlikely, I do suspect there was at a minimum some shared R&D.

My theory is GM is reluctant to put someone else's motor in their halo car - especially given that at the time of the first colab GM was Mercury Marine's sole engine supplier.... GM would be concerned that their engine development could end up in a competitor's hands via Mercury Marine. At this point, GM supplies short blocks to Mercury and what Mercury does with them is Mercury's business.

I also agree that GM doesn't need Mercury to build motors now.... remember Mercury used a 40 year old motor in their development of the ZR1 .... GM didn't have the money or desire to do OHC on their V8s. Now? with the halo car, I suspect that will change.

[SuperBuickGuy]

Update: Yes, I'm going to 2020... but that's not the update.

Someone asked me how I keep track of all the various people and suppliers that I meet at SEMA. It's really easy. I wait 3 months, pull out the cards from my file, then throw away all of the cards from people I don't remember.