Lawn-Boy is a brand of lawn mower, originally manufactured by the Evinrude Company in 1934 and owned since 1989 by Toro. It was the first one-handed reel power mower[clarification needed] introduced to the American public. Evinrude purchased Johnson Motor Wheel Company from a New York stock brokerage firm a year later, and in 1936 they merged with the Outboard Marine and Manufacturing Company (OMC), continuing production of Lawn-Boy mowers until 1939, when it was temporarily put on hold to manufacture outboard motors for World War II.
In 1946, Joel G. (Jack) Doyle built the first rotary lawnmower for the Rotary Power Mower Company of Lamar, Missouri. Doyle accumulated orders for these mowers from Sears Roebuck, Gimbels, Spiegel, and other businesses. OMC then bought RPM in 1952, and changed the brand of the rotary lawn mower to the Lawn-Boy name.
In the 1950s, RPM facilities were converted to production line manufacturing to meet the high number of orders from bigger retailers such as Sears Roebuck and Spiegel.. Also, newer, quieter engines were introduced to reduce sound.
In 1963, the Lawn-Boy HQ and factory was moved from Lamar, Mo. to the Gale Products Facility's (another part of OMC) site in Galesburg, IL.
The next couple of decades included a long period of research and development as the company continued to expand, including overseas. Riding mowers, tillers, and snow blowers were introduced, as well as a new 2-stroke engine in 1970 that produced more power, with less weight and fewer parts. During this time the D-400 engine became popular.
In 1983, two factories were opened in Mississippi and Tennessee. Marketing and Engineering was moved to the Memphis, Tennessee facility.
In 1988, Lawn-Boy acquired Gilson Brothers Co., a Wisconsin-based manufacturer of outdoor power equipment and recreational equipment.
In 1989, with a dire need for cash, OMC sold Lawn-Boy to the Toro Company, and eventually consolidated to the Toro headquarters in Bloomington, Minnesota. In 1996, the brand hit a major milestone: they were the leaders in the market in terms of repurchasing. According to the research, almost 60% of people who were buying Lawn Boy power mowers had owned one of the brand’s products in the past. Since the acquisition by Toro, Lawn-Boy has introduced several new series of lawn mowers, including a new lineup of walk-behind mowers and an entirely new category of Zero Radius Turning mowers. Due to engine emissions regulations, Lawn-Boy had been forced to stop using their longtime 2-stroke engine that was favored for its light weight and simple operation. By 2012, Toro had moved all of its manufacturing operations away from Lawn-Boy and discontinued the production of most of its equipment, instead focusing more on its other brands. Toro then sold the Lawn-Boy name to Heinz Marketing LLC in January 2019.
An outboard motor is a propulsion system for boats, consisting of a self-contained unit that includes engine, gearbox and propeller or jet drive, designed to be affixed to the outside of the transom. They are the most common motorised method of propelling small watercraft. As well as providing propulsion, outboards provide steering control, as they are designed to pivot over their mountings and thus control the direction of thrust. The skeg also acts as a rudder when the engine is not running. Unlike inboard motors, outboard motors can be easily removed for storage or repairs.
A lawn mower is a device utilizing one or more revolving blades to cut a grass surface to an even height. The height of the cut grass may be fixed by the design of the mower but generally is adjustable by the operator, typically by a single master lever or by a mechanism on each of the machine's wheels. The blades may be powered by manual force, with wheels mechanically connected to the cutting blades so that the blades spin when the mower is pushed forward, or the machine may have a battery-powered or plug-in electric motor. The most common self-contained power source for lawn mowers is a small 4-stroke internal combustion engine. Smaller mowers often lack any form of self-propulsion, requiring human power to move over a surface; "walk-behind" mowers are self-propelled, requiring a human only to walk behind and guide them. Larger lawn mowers are usually either self-propelled "walk-behind" types or, more often, are "ride-on" mowers that the operator can sit on and control. A robotic lawn mower is designed to operate either entirely on its own or less commonly by an operator on a remote control.
Briggs & Stratton Corporation is an American manufacturer of gasoline engines with headquarters in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.
Evinrude Outboard Motors was a North American company that built a major brand of two-stroke outboard motors for boats. Founded by Ole Evinrude in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1907, it was formerly owned by the publicly traded Outboard Marine Corporation (OMC) since 1935 but OMC filed for bankruptcy in 2000. It was working as a subsidiary of Canadian Multinational Bombardier Recreational Products but was discontinued in May of 2020.
Johnson Outboards was an American manufacturer of outboard motors founded by the four brothers Louis, Harry, Julius and Clarence Johnson.
Outboard Marine Corporation (OMC) was a maker of Evinrude, Johnson and Gale Outboard Motors, and many different brands of boats. It was a multibillion-dollar Fortune 500 corporation. Evinrude began in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1907. OMC was based in Waukegan, Illinois. They also owned several lines of boats such as Chris Craft, Lowe Boats, Princecraft, Four Winns, SeaSwirl, Stratos, and Javelin. OMC was also a parent company to Lawn-Boy and Ryan, which made lawn mowers.
Stephen Foster Briggs was an American engineer, co-founder of the Briggs & Stratton manufacturing company, and founder of Outboard Marine Corporation.
Cushman is a manufacturer of industrial, personal, and custom vehicles. It is based in Augusta, Georgia, United States, and is owned by Textron.
Murray was an American company whose assets are now owned by Briggs & Stratton and Pon Holdings. The corporate brand is a descendant of the Murray Ohio Manufacturing Company, which manufactured bicycles and lawn and garden equipment. The company went bankrupt in 2005 selling most of its assets to Briggs & Stratton and Pacific Cycle.
Tohatsu Corporation, previously Tokyo Hatsudoki Company, is a Japanese company manufacturing and selling outboard motors, pleasure boats, portable fire pumps, small fire trucks, pumps for construction and drainage, and refrigeration units for transportation. It also does real estate property management in Japan.
The Toro Company is an American company based in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota that designs, manufactures, and markets lawn mowers, snow blowers, and irrigation system supplies for commercial and residential, agricultural, and public sector uses.
Ariens Company, stylized as AriensCo, is an American equipment company based in Wisconsin which has a long history manufacturing snow blowers, lawn tractors, and zero-turn lawn mowers for commercial and high-end consumer markets. Ariens touts itself as being the "mower of the White House lawn," "official snow blower of Lambeau Field," and the "King of Snow".
MTD Products is an American manufacturer of outdoor power equipment for the mass market. Headquartered in Valley City, Ohio, the company began in 1932 and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stanley Black & Decker. Prior to Stanley Black & Decker's acquisition in December 2021, MTD Products was a majority family-owned, private company. It originated as a tool and die maker. MTD's main competitors are Stihl, Ariens, Briggs & Stratton, John Deere and Husqvarna.
The Husqvarna Group is a Swedish manufacturer of outdoor power products including robotic lawn mowers, chainsaws, trimmers, brushcutters, cultivators, and garden tractors. Founded as a firearms manufacturer in 1689, it is one of the oldest continuously running companies in the world. Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, the group also produces consumer watering products under the brand Gardena, cutting equipment and diamond tools for the construction and stone industries.
Two-wheel tractor or walking tractor are generic terms understood in the US and in parts of Europe to represent a single-axle tractor, which is a tractor with one axle, self-powered and self-propelled, which can pull and power various farm implements such as a trailer, cultivator or harrow, a plough, or various seeders and harvesters. The operator usually walks behind it or rides the implement being towed. Similar terms are mistakenly applied to the household rotary tiller or power tiller; although these may be wheeled and/or self-propelled, they are not tailored for towing implements. A two-wheeled tractor specializes in pulling any of numerous types of implements, whereas rotary tillers specialize in soil tillage with their dedicated digging tools. This article concerns two-wheeled tractors as distinguished from such tillers.
Victa is an Australian manufacturer of outdoor garden equipment, including petrol, electric, and battery-powered lawn mowers, edgers, trimmers, and chainsaws. The brand is best known as a manufacturer of rotary lawn mowers. In the early 1960s the company also built light aircraft, notably the Victa Airtourer, and project homes.
Gilson Brothers Co. was a Wisconsin-based manufacturer of outdoor power equipment and recreational equipment. It operated independently between its inception in 1911 until acquisition by Lawn-Boy in 1988. The company was probably most well known for its garden tillers, snowblowers and garden tractors produced from the 1960s through the 1980s.
The D-400 series engine or the Iron Horse engine was a light-duty two-stroke engine used for powering lawnmowers produced from the 1950s to the late 1970s. D-400 engines were single-cylinder engines designed and manufactured by the Outboard Marine Corporation for Lawn-Boy and Masport. The D-400 engines displaced 109 cc, generated 3.5 hp (2.6 kW) of power, and operated in the range of 2400-3300 RPM.
Gale Products was a manufacturer of several products based in Galesburg, Illinois. The company started in 1937 assembling refrigerators from parts sent in from Waukegan, Illinois The factory expanded making many other household products. In 1941, Gale Products was acquired by the Outboard Marine Corporation (OMC) to build outboard motors. After building over one million motors, the parent company OMC ceased boat motor manufacturing reusing the facility as the new headquarters and factory of Lawn-Boy lawn mowers. Eventually, Lawn-Boy was sold to its competitor Toro where offices were moved to Minnesota and manufacturing was moved to other Toro facilities. The factory was closed in the mid-1980's.
Hayter is a British high-end manufacturer and distributor of garden machinery, specialising in industrial and domestic lawn mowers. The company's headquarters are located in Spellbrook, Hertfordshire, where it was founded in 1946 by Douglas Hayter, a pioneer of the rotary mower. The company was awarded a Royal Warrant in 1960.
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