Deejay, the Briggs 60102 was a 2 hp Briggs available long before the Kirby-Lauson on Chris's mower was made - I used to have a 1963 one myself. Having had a Kirby-Lauson as well, I would never have another. The fitment of a Kirby to Chris's mower probably related to one of two unfortunate situations: overstocking by SB with the Kirby engines a number of years earlier, or a contract with Kirby that they didn't want to buy their way out of. In the early days of the Kirby-Lauson people used them despite their unattractiveness because the federal government made it well nigh impossible to import American engines. Why Kirby decided to make the Lauson rather than the Briggs in their Sydney plant is a bit of a mystery, but perhaps Briggs did not want licensed offshore production of their engines. Anyway, the Kirby's presence on Chris's mower is the product of some kind of economic misfortune that befell SB: the 14" mower was a slow seller, so they fitted it with a crap engine that made it just about a non-seller, and therefore the torture of trying to sell it was greatly prolonged by the silliness of the accounting department in insisting that they used up the crap engines.
It would be mildly interesting to find out how it all happened, but yet another case study of how the accounting department can louse up your business would be pointless repetition.
