industry for five years. The company continued without him, becoming a subsidiary of the gasoline-engine manufacturer Briggs & Stratton Corporation in 1926. By 1921, Evinrude was back in business, in a venture he called the ELTO Outboard Motor Company. His new offering was the Evinrude Light Twin Outboard, a motor partly made of aluminum, reducing its weight by a third. Popular with the fishing fleets, this revolutionary engine outstripped sales of Evinrude's original outboard motor within three years. It also attracted the attention of a competitor, Johnson Motor Company, which brought out its rival lightweight engine in 1922. Johnson gained market share, snatching the lead four years later with an updated model weighing a trim 100 pounds, costing a thrifty $190, and able to drive a boat at a zippy 16 miles per hour. Neither the Evinrude Company nor ELTO could match this. Now far ahead, Johnson produced a net profit of $433,000 in 1927, far outpacing Evinrude's $25,000 and ELTO's $30,000. A new engine in 1928 restored the ELTO Company, whose annual net profit rose to $300,000. Ole Evinrude merged ELTO with Stephen Briggs the following year when he and Harold Stratton disagreed over diversifying Briggs & Stratton into the outboard engine market. Mr. Briggs became chairman of the brand-new Outboard Motors Corporation with Mr. Evinrude as the President. The Great Depression and World War II Outboard scarcely had time to find its feet before the stock market crash of 1929 tested its staying power. Already responsible for $500,000 in bank loans as a result of the merger, the company had to increase its debt to $600,000 between 1930 and 1932, when operating deficits totaled $550,000. To keep the business afloat, the entire inventory was sold at bargain prices, and Evinrude sacrificed his salary until his death in 1934. Johnson's fate was worse. A too-costly advertising campaign, as well as an ill-timed offering of matched motors and hulls, drained all cash reserves by 1930, when control of the company passed to its bankers. Next came an attempt to lessen its reliance on seasonal sales by entry into the refrigerator-compressor market. This last-ditch effort did not revive the business, and shortly thereafter Johnson was for sale. In 1935, the Outboard Motors Corporation bought the Johnson Motor Company. Its $800,000 price tag brought Outboard a well-known line of outboards and plant and equipment worth $1.5 million. It also brought Outboard established