This year was the year of big change for me in Racing.
OMC did many things I disagree with, like kicking out the Swedish Evinrude distributor Huzells.
My relationship with Paul Kalb, the European Racing boss was not so good.
Many people was sick and tired of me winning more or less everything for 4 years in the SE class and most drivers wanted to switch to OE instead of SE.

Paul Kalb called me and offered me a free Evinrude OE engine including  parts and service at the races. All the travel cost was also part of the offer.
Well, my old Racing deal with Huzells use to be way better and I made money the last three
years from Racing.
At that point I run across Rutger Friberg, an old friend of mine.
Rutger was in charge of Volvo Penta Outboards  and som other Volvo Divisions. I told him to make me a good offer to race the Volvo Penta /König.  After a few days Rutger
got back to me with something really good.

Lots of up front money, paying for boats and racing trucks and a nice budget for travel cost etc.
Also to be the number one Volvo Penta-Konig driver with access to Gert Lowisin full time for the race season.
Gert was really smart and good with props and getting horsepower out of engines.OE was a no restriction class and I signed the deal with Volvo the next day.
I also included a Offshore deal to have free equipment to have a shot at the over all winner of Roslagsloppet. A very big Offshore race back then in Sweden.The first thing I did after signing the Volvo deal was to contact Bengt Nilsson.
Bengt was the CEO for the new company, OMC Sweden.Bengt use to be the CEO for Huzells Marine Division and he got the job for the new OMC set up in Sweden.I told Bengt this is maybe no good for my Evinrude dealership, but racing was a big part of
my life and the Volvo Penta deal was too good to turn down.

Now my next big dilemma happened.
A few days later Billy Huzell came to my dealership with the Sales manager for Suzuki outboards.
Huzells offered me very good net pricing, if I signed up to be a Suzuki dealer!!!.
Way better conditions then OMC.
After a long discussion I ordered 150 Suzuki outboards.
The best part was 1 year credit and no interest.

A few days later Bengt Nilsson called me and asked if the Suzuki rumors was true…..
I said yes, and felt really bad…..
The next day I called Huzells and canceled the Suzuki deal and asked them to pick up all
the 150 outboards ASAP!!!!

Next is my 1977 Racing story..Link https://svera.se/blogg/racing-historier/volvo-pentakonig-racing-1977/

Photo:
Rutger Friberg is the man behind the Volvo Penta Outboard.
Lars is to the right.