American-Made Marketing Badness

When it comes to new high-performance boats, American Custom Marine owner Michael Knoblock is a devout Nor-Tech man. His full-service dealership in Kimball, Mich., is among the strongest members of the Cape Coral, Fla.-headquartered company’s brawny dealer network.

Like any legitimate dealer, Knoblock takes trades of all kinds, which in turn he sells if he sees the value in them. Truth be told, the guy just loves fast boats.

So when a 2011 model 40-foot Fountain came across his path in 2024, Knoblock kept it and created something wild. He restored the canopied V-bottom inside and out and repowered it with Mercury Racing 1550/1350 engines. Then he took it racing with his friend Matt Soper, who earned an Offshore Powerboat Association Bracket 400 Class World Championship in 2022.

Knoblock and Soper debuted the 40-footer in the 2024 St. Clair River Classic and ran it again that year in the XINSURANCE Great Lakes Grand Prix. That they didn’t have a thriving class to enter made no difference to them, because that’s not why Knoblock spent the time and money to rehab the boat.

It was and is a marketing vehicle for American Custom Marine. And it will be back in action this season at both races as well as XINSURNACE Offshore, formerly Shootout Offshore and—before that—the Lake Race at the Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri.

“It is absolutely, 100 percent for marketing,” Knoblock explained. “And it has absolutely led to sales.

“I wanted something I could run and have fun in,” he continued. “I didn’t want to build a Super V-class raceboat with Super V engines. Just about everything in that spec power, from its carburetors to its ignition system, is old school, Plus, we are a Mercury Racing dealer. We wanted modern power we could showcase in races.”

Knoblock has taken some flak for that power choice, and he understands it and holds no grudges. Because of its power, the Fountain was shoe-horned into various “Extreme” and “Unlimited” classes last season, and it didn’t have much competition.

But unlike most spec-class offshore racing team owners, Knoblock is in the high-performance marine business. He sells used Fountains. He sells new Mercury Racing engines. The combo made excellent business sense.

And it still does. His circus, his monkeys and—most important—his money.

Plus, he’s having the time of his life running his 14-year-old V-bottom with modern year-old power.—Matt Trulio

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Source: https://www.powerboatnation.com/american-made-marketing-badness/