Formerly deputy general manager of Mercury Marine's diesel joint venture and now vice president of sales and marketing worldwide for the new CMD Marine, Dickman immediately stressed the Mercury Brunswick connection would not mean an easy ride for the new company.

"We have to earn our way, " he said. "There's no obligation from Brunswick to use us."

The joint venture calls for Cummins to supply inboard diesels of 15 litres and below.

Mercury Marine will supply the Mercury 1.7, 2.8, 4.2 and 7.3 litre diesel engines, drive units for sterndrive applications and the company's SmartCraft electronic integration hardware.

The company has spent the last year developing its staff - now 140 employees at the headquarters in Charleston, Carolina - and planning the move towards re-naming MerCruiser products and announcing the distribution operation.

Going head to head with Volvo Penta needs a strong distribution network. "Over the past eight months we've been working with Cummins and Mercury distribution leaders around the world to develop the best regional distribution model, " said Dickman. "In North America the Cummins Marine channel has been selected to take the lead in distributing the CMD product line."

We 've made great progress toward deciding the lead in South America, the Pacific region, Australia and New Zealand and expect to announce agreements by the second quarter of 2003, he added.

Europe is a different proposition, according to Dickman. "Europe is many individual markets, " he said.

"Distribution decisions will be announced on a country by country basis during 2003."

The UK and German networks were due to be announced during the Dusseldorf Boat Show, although Peter Bold, Cummins UK's general manager, marine, confirmed E P Barrus will be involved.

The new company, which aims to be the premier worldwide supplier of integrated diesel marine propulsion units, says it intends to evolve into the industry's only "prop-to-helm" performance source.