Vintage Horticultural and Garden Machinery Club

This is the third in a series of ‘Guess the company’ quizzes – and is more difficult than the first two and the clues are not in date order. Can you determine which single company the clues refer to?

The answer is at the bottom of the page.

Past quizzes can be found here: First Quiz and Second Quiz

Which single company do all these clues point to?

Clue 1: This UK company made most of their own gardening machines and by 1987 30% of production was sold abroad.

Clue 2: A successful company, the assets included a full-size helicopter in a brown livery with the company name.

Clue 3: The company started small in a former warehouse in High Wycombe in the 1960s, but nearly twenty years later it was eventually bought in a £9m deal.

Clue 4: In 1985 an unorthodox ride-on mower was produced. It was called the Clipper and had an engine protruding at the front. It had chain-driven small front wheels and strange steering. It was a short-lived model!

Clue 5: A slight deviation from garden machines, in the 1980s the company also advertised a range of small groundwork machines for DIY excavation projects. These included two four-wheel dumpers and a small digger.

Clue 6: Several small garden tillers/cultivators were made including the Gemini, Imp and Groundhog. In 1973 the Imp had a 15″ working width, a 2.5 hp Aspera engine and a centrifugal clutch, and cost £60+vat.

Clue 7: Although a range of pedestrian mowers was made, in the 1980s rebranded Ibea mowers started to be sold by the company. These included the Rotastripe (rear roller), County and Enduro (4-wheel).

Clue 8: The company is best known for their range of ride-on mowers, the early/vintage ones are popular and have a following of enthusiasts. These include the early W series models which were petrol-driven, in 1984 a diesel model was added. The W series was replaced by the S and T series.

Scroll down for the answer……

All the clues point to the company Westwood Engineering Ltd.

The company started in the late 1960s at Fryers Works, Abercromby Avenue, High Wycombe. Around 1973 they moved to Plympton, Devon.

The company originally manufactured many pedestrian lawnmowers and tillers, including the Sabre mower range and the Westwood Imp 2.5 hp cultivator with a 15″ working width. Westwood also listed the Rockwell electric hedge trimmers.

Westwood got into the ride-on mower market in 1971 with the launch of the Lawnbug. To have larger lawn tractors, Westwood sold the American Dynamark tractor range in the 1970s. However, by the mid-1970s the more familiar tractors that we associate with the W-series were manufactured by Westwood.

The Westwood tractors can be found worldwide, and in the 1980s were rebadged as Ginge in Denmark and Agro-Trac in Austria. They also had cosmetic changes and rebadged as the Honda-powered Lawnmaster made by Bartram Mowers Ltd in Norwich.

In 1985, Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies purchased Mountfield for £9m.

Away from horticultural machines, the Westwood company advertised the ‘Muck Shifters – clue number 5 and illustrated below. These were diggers and dumpers for small projects – such as in a back garden where larger machines couldn’t gain access. The ‘Muscleman’ was a small digger that could dig down to 7′ deep; the ‘Muck Truk’ was a 46″ wide 4-wheel dumper that could carry up to 400KG; the ‘Skip Truk’ was a high-lift version of the Muck Truk that could lift high enough to tip into a skip.