A friend of mine who spent 20 years working as a general purpose mechanic on fishing boats in Alaska bought a Nissan kicker last summer. He is also probably the most mechanically gifted person I know. To date he has been very pleased. For me, his testimonial is very powerful.

Also, I am told that the Mercury 4-stroke portable outboards use the same mechanicals as the Nissan and Tohatsu. I can't back that up with anything substantive, though.

BTW, does anyone remember when Yamaha was new to the US outboard market? I bet there was some grumbling about those cheezy imported outboards