I should have bought….

[alan]

I have been doing research on Lawnflite mowers, this is no easy task I can tell you, but it reminded me of a machine I saw years ago that I should have bought at a sale, although I did take photos, one attached.

It was a Lawnflite 8 made by MTD and imported by Barrus in the 70’s. This ride-on-mower was complete and had all the elements of a machine with design flair to make it stand out – the rear wings, large inset headlights and unusual metallic blue paintwork matched with white. It would make a very usable machine or likewise restore to catch the eye at a vintage show. So far I have not seen another and they may all have gone to the great scrapyard in the sky. There are similar model 8 machines but none quite like this, I wonder how many are still out there?

This makes we wonder if anyone else has regretted not buying a certain machine. Mind, there’s also some machines I wish I’d never bought or given room to and the sooner they parted my company the better!

Attachments:

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[andyfrost]

Alan , one springs to mind among many opportunities , it was a large Ransomes cylinder mower at a posh country hall that my uncle worked on, it had started to become unreliable , I had the chance to buy it for next to nothing.
At the time it was the oldest petrol mower that I had seen , powered by an
“Orwell” dry sump engine , I did see another at the Ardingly vintage show a few years ago.

Andy.

[wristpin]

When my late business partner and I started our business in 1981 we did not have any direct accounts for new machines so we bought some from a certain well known “ broker” of end of line machines. One of our first purchases was several metallic blue MTD tractor mowers . Pre 81 I can remember Barrus exhibiting at Motspur Park, probably the first “ direct collect” machine made specifically for the UK market, the MTD 826. The one at the show was metallic blue but the production machines were the more familiar red and silver.

[charlie]

My biggest regret was an Emery I saw on e bay, foolishly I did not go for the buy it now option and missed out in the bidding. I remember it was said to have a Villiers V engine, this was a wartime version. I just hope that the machine was not bought by an engine collector solely for the engine.

[expeatfarmer]

Andy I have one of those dry sump machines with the 600cc Sturmey Archer engine a 30″ cut ex Muirfield Golf Course runs like a dream. Same engine basicly as Ransomes MG2.

[Author]

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