With the formal launch of its 4.3Gi, 200-hp entry-level V-6 engine, Volvo Penta completed the transition to the New Generation, New Technology gasoline sterndrive lineup it started a year ago, the company announced.
"Our decision to exit the low-horsepower, carbureted engine market allowed our engineers to focus their energy on creating state-of-the-art propulsion packages designed to deliver great boating experiences, even at the entry level," Volvo Penta of the Americas president and CEO Clint Moore said in a statement.
"For many years, a low-horsepower engine was a boater's first experience with a sterndrive boat. Times have changed. As with today's car buyers, a new boater is more knowledgeable than ever before, with understandably high expectations," Moore added. "We believe those expectations are only met by higher-horsepower, more technically sophisticated engines. We build the engines that are designed to keep people in boating."
All Volvo Penta sterndrive engines now feature multiport fuel injection, electronic throttle control and advanced engine monitoring systems.
"Our development momentum is continuing as a result of millions of dollars in product investment over the past three years," Moore added.
Early next year Volvo Penta will introduce a 230-hp catalyzed engine. Later in 2012 Volvo Penta will unveil an entirely new product that will "take gasoline sterndrive power to the next level," the company said.
