See how the Victa lawnmower has developed over the past 70 years in this display that includes the original prototype, the first production model, the Golden Anniversary mower and more.
In 1952 Australia was at the start of a housing boom that created an unprecedented number of homeowners and renters with gardens and lawns to maintain. It was in this context that a backyard invention quickly grew into an Australian icon. From his garage in the Sydney suburb of Concord, Mervyn Victor Richardson, a former auto-engineer and car salesman, designed and built a rotary mower powered by a two-stroke engine for his son Garry to use in his lawnmowing business.
The innovation was lighter and easier to use than the heavy manual mowers popular at the time. Within two years the Victa Company had a factory in Western Sydney and had sold 20,000 mowers around the world. Victa has continuously innovated in response to changes in gardening trends, the economic cycle and more recently consumer concerns about the environment. Victa has been foreign owned since 2008 but its products are still mostly designed and manufactured in Australia.
