Victa 18 Lawnmower

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Victa Mowers

c. 1957

Overview

This lawnmower is a Victa 18 which was termed a Special and was first made in 1957.

Historical information

The Victa Rotary Lawnmower was invented by Mervyn Victor Richardson on August 1952 in a shed in Concorde, Sydney. Although there had been other Rotary Lawnmowers before the Victa, the Victa was lighter, easier to use and cheaper to manufacture. Mervyn originally sold his lawnmowers from his home but by 1953, the demand for the rotary mowers was so strong that Richardson gave up his job and became full-time manager of Victa Mowers.

By 1954 Victa had sold 200,000 mowers and started exporting. By 1958 Victa were building 143,000 mowers a year, exporting to 28 countries and advertising their products on television in Melbourne and Sydney. In 1959 Victa introduced the advertising slogans “Turns grass into lawn” and “Australia’s top selling mower” which became part of the Australian vernacular.

Details

Registration number

cwa-org-124-2022.212

Item type

Machinery

Themes

Social History

Material

Alloy Steel

Inscriptions and markings

18
Victa

Contextual Information

Around 1957 Sunnywest took on the agency for Victa Lawnmowers in the Busselton region and Norm Thomas, who was then the Manager of the Busselton Butter Factory, bought a Victa 18 like this one. He was obviously happy with his purchase and loud in the mower’s praises as he convinced Vic King, who was in charge of the Butter Factory Boiler, to also buy one. However Vic King bought the Victa Rotomo as it had a Clipper motor which could be removed from the mower and used as an outboard motor on his boat. Vic’s son Terry recalls that Vic only used the motor once on his boat as it was noisy, smelly and took up the room where he liked to sit when fishing. After the one outing on the boat the motor remained on the mower and was only used to mow the lawn.

The Victa lawnmower is an Australian icon and like the Hills Hoist, at one time, almost every Australian household would have owned one.

Keywords

Busselton

Lawn Mower

Place made

Sydney
NSW
Australia

Year

c. 1957

Primary significance criteria

Historic significance

Social or spiritual significance

Comparative significance criteria