PART FOUR - SIGNIFICANCE

The Austral-Villiers Adaptomatic was another example of an engineering folly that misread
where the market was heading in terms of lawnmower design.

This little machine was priced to be as expensive as a Victa Automatic = a top-end rotary machine
of the day. What you got here, though, was a small motor and a small cut on a machine where the
additional costs of a PTO and accessories would have made this an extremely expensive proposition.
[NOTE: the PTO accessory kit sold for about £11]

The PTO idea was flawed on this design; requiring assembly and disassembly every time it was used!
It was totally inconvenient. The kick-start system was sound, but expensive to manufacture. It would
be out of date as it hit the showroom floor. The more compact (and simpler) recoil and wind-up starters
would become the norm by 1960.

The biggest defects that prevented further development were small size cut, no quick folding handle
and, most of all, no capacity to accept a grass catcher. The Adaptomatic couldn't adapt to the 1960s.
Like any 'good' spaghetti sci-fi film ending, the little green and red mower just mowed off into the distance.

The rest is history.
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JACK

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