Hello ODK history lovers
If someone asked me what was the most memorable Victa
advertising campaign, I would have no hesitation in saying the
1973 season.

Everyone from my generation knows the “Zip on the Doodah” jingle.
Victa must have paid Walt Disney a catcher load of cash for that ditty.

Why the hoopla?
Well, Victa had now sold 2 million mowers, and the big event was
the advent of their decompressor two-strokes for the 1973 season.

Merv Richardson had always wanted an Australian designed and
built motor for his mowers, and he achieved that with his Model 1
for the 1956 season.

It must have irked Victa that the 4-stroke dominated the 1960s,
and their two-strokes had to succumb to an imported starter design.

Victa did two serendipitous things for the next decade. It combined
its new high-arch VCs with their new decompressor engines for the
1973 season. The Victa engine was, once again, a totally Australian
design. That needed celebrating and Victa did not hold back, employing
a prominent advertising agency to deliver the goods. They delivered!

This is the story of a ‘recard’, a cardboard record Victa issued to
promote the 1973 season.

I had been looking for one for years, and I was lucky enough to acquire
a mint copy in 2020. I would like to share it here ...

[Linked Image]

This is a single-size 33rpm recard with two tunes and four songs
of about one minute each. They are: -

“Hey It’s Victa Time”
“Zip on the Doodah”
“Hey It’s Mowing Time”
“Zip on the Doodah-Chorus”

How many of these do you remember?

TO BE CONTINUED …