Vintage Horticultural and Garden Machinery Club

Hello

Glad to hear that you have the Flymos running once again.

There’s quite a range of Flymo badged machinery so you’ll probably find yourself collecting all sorts of different Flymo stuff.

Also there’s a range of Flymo badged professional machines including cylinder mowers and trailed seats to fit too – there was some business links (cannot remember how) between Flymo, Electrolux, Norlett and a few others so perhaps the machines were shared between them and rebadged.

You have probably seen the gallery at: http://vhgmc.co.uk/photo-galleries/flymo/

Would be good to see some photos of your mowers now they are working.

Alan

The motors on these were never that good even when new. Back in the 80’s we used to have a warranty rack for return of failed parts to the manufacturers (if they were still under warranty) and there was one shelf on it that was always stacked high with Flymo motors.

Funnily enough they didn’t want many back!

It’s good to see that someone is collecting these for preservation because there will come a day when there won’t be any left, then it will be too late. Preservation is about re-awakening people’s memories of the past and it doesn’t really matter how we do it; this has dredged up a long-forgotten part of my past, so well done!

Here’s another machine that was cheap and cheerful in its day and thrown away by the dozen.
The original E30 Qualcast Concorde.

The Qualcast E30 of my childhood!

I have attached a Flymo and a Qualcast 1970’s images from the Argos catalogue.

The Qualcast was £16.25 in 1973 but had risen to £35.49 in the 1978 catalogue.

The 1979 Flymo images has, on the left, a GLE 15″ cut at £63.99. The DLE in the centre of the image has a 12″ cut and was £45.99. Both had 52′ of cable. The Black and Decker mower on the right was a D808 ‘Super T’ and retailed for £32.99.

The Flymos were at the upper end of the price range for electric mowers.

Think the lady in the image had better get some steel toe capped boots on if she’s thinking of mowing.

Ah yes, of course Husqvarna and Jonsered were the companies I couldn’t think of!

I’ve found some newspaper cuttings regarding Flymo in my archive which ties a few businesses together, and I quote from them:

In 1980 The Electrolux Group purchased the Norweigen Norlett Group, this was to strengthen the outdoor power equipment activities of Electrolux in all countries and compliment their Flymo product range. At the time Norlett also owned the Guddena Company of Denmark and had a 50% share in Amnor, the Belgian manufacturer of Wheelhorse tractors. Flymo said they could now offer a complete range of wheeled and air cushion mowers, cultivators, nylon line trimmers and chainsaws.

In 1981 the Flymo organisation announced that they planned to lead the UK lawn mower business. Flymo was a member of the Electrolux group which was one of the worlds largest suppliers of outdoor equipment producing 700,000 mowers per year. Flymo marketing predicted that within the next twelve months 50% of the UK market would be air cushion mowers.

Acquiring Norlett also gained them the garden lighting division.

Following on from the earlier purchase of Norlett, in 1981 Flymo Ltd launched a subsidiary company called Flymo-Norlett Commercial Products Ltd. This was to market a new range of garden care products through a network of specialist lawn and garden dealers. They were to be based at the company headquarters at Aycliffe, County Durham. The product range consisted of mowers either air-cushioned, wheeled rotary, cylinder or ride-on as well as larger cultivators. “It combines new Flymo products with well-established Norlett models“.

In 1981 Norlett Ltd was quoted as being located in Oxfordshire as manufacturers of garden machinery and as stated were to merge operations with their sister company, Flymo Ltd, at Darlington.

There may be more but I cannot find it!

I have just beewn to a local Essex show [3day’s] held every year run by my old firm and they always have an odds tent which has all kind’s of stuff at very cheap price’s , new cyl’s for ransome jackobsen’s, b/blade’s, b/s silencers and i noticed 50 yes 50 brand new boxed flymo electric motor’s…………………