I am currently in a verbal battle via e-mails with a guy flogging an outboard on e-bay, he states in the auction quite naively, "that the guy he bought it off stated it was late 80's" I know for a fact (having the exact same model myself) that they were discontinued in 1976!
I informed him of this, & got a load of e-verbal about him not being a outboard geek, & that he was telling everybody what he believed etc, so having had the opportunity to change the auction in the light of new information received, he decided to bluster instead, I have told e-bay what I told him, now its up to them to sort out.
They should now re run the auction with the new info, so that the buyer knows that the engine is at least 15yrs older than they are being led to believe!
How do I know so much about this model, because I bought mine off e-bay under the same impression, only to find out from a dealer that my "late 80's" outboard was in fact 1974 vintage, buyer beware!
blueskip