It was called the ALKOTRAC. There were two engine sizes, the 8hp just for mowing and the 10hp with the grass collection.

I’ve never seen one in the tinwork but I thought that it’d be a fun machine just for the novelty of the collector!

Yes, they were 1970s/80s but it looks like they were 1970s in mainland Europe before filtering through to the UK going into the 1980s.

I have a brochure and price list and will get those scanned and uploaded for you.

I have scanned the 1984 four-page brochure and the relevant bit of the price list which I’ve put at the top of the last page.

AL-KO had relocated from their Barnsley site to Consett in County Durham in 1984 – the new address is on the back page of the brochure. I found a trade report where they stated that the new premises were nearer to a port and thus reduced transport costs when importing their lawn mowers, trimmers, cement mixers, bench equipment etc from Germany and Austria. They seem to have imported a large and varied range of equipment.