If Bryan Greenwood and Jim Isaac were nervous when I nailed the throttle on their $900,000 flagship, the pair of sales managers didn’t show it. Still, I know I was nervous. Standing at the helm of their brand-spanking-new center console, the Phenom 37, I clutched a pair of controls that put 1,200 horsepower at my fingertips. Then with 30 pistons fully summoned, the trio of V10 Mercury Verados smoothly, and quietly launched the 11,000-pound vessel with an authority that was, frankly, astonishing. The damndest thing wasn’t necessarily the holeshot takeoff, which was plenty impressive itself, but the progressive nature of her velocity. In a matter of seconds, the Garmin display read 65 mph. If I wanted to push her further, Greenwood assured me: “She’ll do better than 70—no problem.”
Nah, I told myself, bounding and carving smoothly through the chop, I’m good—really good.
The 37’s warp-like acceleration was not only due to winged Mercurys at her stern, but the fluid dynamics engineering poured into her stepped hull. That gleaming, meticulously designed underside is but one of a myriad of
