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.
Since 2008 and as of 2024 [update] the Victa brand is owned by the American engine manufacturer Briggs & Stratton. In Australia and New Zealand, Victa products are sold through major hardware chains and specialist dealers, and some products are available through dealers in other countries.
The Victa company was founded by Mervyn Victor Richardson [1] in 1952. [2] The name was derived from his middle name. [3]
Mervyn's son Garry mowed lawns to earn money in university holidays. Garry borrowed Mervyn's Victa 14" cylinder-based power mower which was heavy to transport and to operate. Mervyn wanted to design a new mower for his son's business. Mervyn had seen Lawrence Hall's "Mowhall" rotary lawn mower demonstrated in 1948. The heavy Mowhall was not a very successful invention because it required two people to use it, one to push and one to pull.[ citation needed ]
The Victa rotary lawn mower was developed in August 1952 by Richardson, in his backyard at Concord, New South Wales. [4] Although not the first of its type, it was cheaper, lighter, and easier to use than earlier models. [5]
Although Richardson had developed rotating reel mowers for his son's business, in August 1952 he decided to make a rotary lawn mower similar to the Mowhall, using a Villiers two-stroke engine mounted on its side but utilising a lighter base plate, allowing use by a single operator. He wanted it to be cheaper, lighter and more powerful. It was called the "Peach-Tin Prototype", so named because it was made out of scrap metal with a peach tin used as a fuel tank.[ citation needed ]
Initially selling the mowers from his home, [5] by 1953, demand for the mowers was so strong that Richardson gave up his job and became full-time manager of his new company, Victa Mowers Pty Ltd. [1]
By 2002, 6.5 million Victa mowers had been sold in 30 countries. [5]
In the early 1960s, the firm diversified into other industries: it manufactured the "red phone" (a private payphone system, for use in business premises), aircraft, and, for a short while, Victa project homes. [3]
In 1960, Victa Consolidated Industries, later renamed Victa Ltd, undertook to build 50 Victa Airtourers, a light monoplane designed by Henry Millicer, under Mervyn Victor Richardson, who had an interest in aeroplanes. [6] The company set up an Aviation Division at their Milperra base, and also produced the Victa Aircruiser and Victa Gyroplane. [7] Victa built 168 of the aircraft in Sydney before selling off the division to New Zealand company AESL in 1966. [8] The Airtourer proved very popular, boosted by Victa's purchase plan whereby owners could pay off the cost in instalments. [9]
Although certification was obtained, the Aircruiser was never put into production by Victa, as they withdrew that arm of their operations in 1966-7 after the government would not grant them a financial advantage to protect the local industry over imported aeroplanes. [10] The same fate befell the Victa R-2, a prototype single-engine four-seat light aircraft. Only one was built, which first flew in February 1961, but no production followed. [11]
In the 1960s, Victa produced a range of project homes in Australia. [12] [13] [14]
In 1953 Richardson gave up his job and became full-time manager of Victa Mowers Pty Ltd. In 1958, the company had moved to a new factory at Milperra, New South Wales, and its 3,000 employees were building 143,000 mowers a year for export to 28 countries. [1]
From the outset, the company used marketing and advertising effectively. It was a pioneer in Australian TV advertising, and also advertised extensively in newspaper and print media. Victa set up a network of distributors, who were thoroughly trained in promotion and sales. [5]
In the 1960s, Mervyn's son Garry Richardson started playing a more important role in the company, becoming chairman in 1965. [3]
In 1970 Victa was acquired by Sunbeam Corporation Ltd. [15] [3]
In 1994 the factory moved to Campsie, and the seven millionth Victa lawnmower was built in 1997. [3]
In 1996, the company was sold to GUD Holdings Limited, [16] who sold the Victa Lawn Care business to American-based Briggs & Stratton for A$23 million in 2008. [17] [18] [3] As of 2024 [update] Briggs & Stratton owns the Victa brand. [19]
While most design and manufacturing capability has remained in Australia, such as assembly, research and development, and parts manufacture, all engine products are sourced from Briggs & Stratton's Facilities in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.[ citation needed ]
Outdoor garden equipment, including petrol, electric, and battery-powered lawn mowers, edgers, trimmers, and chainsaws are sold under the Victa brand. [20]
Victa is also sold in limited quantities through specialist dealers internationally. [21]
The Victa Lawnmower regarded by many as an Australian icon, and it was included in the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. [3] A retro advertisement for Victa is on permanent display at Museum Railway Station in Sydney. [22]
The Richardson radial aero-engine, the Victa prototype lawnmower (1952), [3] the Victa Peach Tin prototype, and other important Victa lawn mowers were donated to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. [23] The Powerhouse held an exhibition entitled Victa – 70 years turning grass into lawns in 2023. [24]
The archive of Philip Larkin's work at University of Hull includes the blue Victa lawn mower involved in the incident that inspired his famous poem 'The Mower'. [25] [26]
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.
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Henry K. Millicer, AM born Henryk Kazimierz Milicer, was a Polish-Australian aircraft designer and pilot.
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The Victa Airtourer is an all-metal light low-wing monoplane touring aircraft that was developed in Australia, and was manufactured in both Australia and New Zealand.
Mervyn Victor Richardson, was an Australian inventor and industrialist. In 1952 he produced a rotary lawn mower that proved popular leading to the formation of the company Victa. He commercialised the mower with creation of Victa Consolidated Industries and later went on to extend the business to include the manufacture of the Victa Airtourer and Victa Aircruiser aircraft and project homes.
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A rotary mower is a unit of powered machinery that uses a rotating blade or blades to cut vegetation.
The Victa Aircruiser was a 1960s Australian four-seat touring monoplane designed by Henry Millicer and built by Victa. It was not put into production by Victa, and the rights were sold to AESL in 1969.
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