Hi to all
ODK members,
Here is some history of the introduction of the
Lauson/Kirby/Tecumseh 4 Stroke engines into Australia as written by
Mr. Steve Coleman, who was responsible for the introduction of these engines, in his capacity as CEO of Pace Mowers (which was secretly owned by Victa Mowers....but that is another story)
Here is Steve's story.....
In 1961 suddenly Mr. John McEwen then the Minister of Trade announced that no more import licences will be required. I was interested and immediately wrote to the three well-known small motor manufacturers in USA, namely Briggs and Stratton, Lauson and Clinton. B&S did not even reply since they were represented by a large company, whose name escapes me although I passed them twice a day on Parramatta Road, Clinton replied that they have nothing to offer for lawnmowers and the Tecumseh company, making Lauson engines replied that James N. Kirby are representing them and they will quote for supply of engines to Pace Mowers Pty. Ltd.
I was surprised to hear that since Kirby's, who manufactured the Tecumseh compressors for use in refrigerators and air conditioners, also manufactured (or assembled) the Johnson Iron Horse engines for mowers and they showed me some weeks earlier a new 4-stroke engine, which they planned to make more powerful than any on the Australian market.
In 1961 you did not pick up the phone and dialled a Michigan factory, so I sent a cable to Tecumseh to advise them that I will be ringing their export department next day at a certain time and asked that they should stand by for a discussion. When I did ring next day Joe Galazzi answered and I spoke to him with a stopwatch in my hand, since a call in today's money would have cost about $40 per minute, I did not mince my words and asked him if he is aware that Kirby's make an engine competing with theirs and even preparing to produce a 4 stroke in Australia. Galazzi was quite surprised but could only repeat that their Australian agents are the Kirby organisation and I should get in touch with them if I want Lauson engines.
Next day I had a telephone call from a Kevin Kirby and he came to see me in our Wetherill Street factory. I told him that if I cannot buy engines direct from the factory, I will be buying them from Briggs and if I will do that the Tecumseh Company might not be very happy with Kirby's as an agent. Kevin, who became a lifelong friend of mine, rung me next day that having discussed the matter with his father, Sir James Kirby, they will recommend that Pace should be appointed agent for the Tecumseh-Lauson engine.
I rung Carney Fieldhouse (a solicitor who was a director of Victa) and told him what happened. That evening, with Harry Horton (GM of Victa), John Craggs (Finance Director) they came over to my office and I explained to them how I blackmailed myself into becoming agents for the second largest small engine manufacturer of the World and we discussed how Merv Richardson, everso proud of his Victa/Tiger engine will accept the news of his fully owned subsidiary becoming a competitor to him.
It was only a couple of days later that Harry Horton told me that they calmed down him by suggesting that the situation is to his advantage since he will be both a manufacturer of a two stroke and an importer of a four stroke engine. It also helped that Richardson was convinced that 4-stroke engines are useless, as they do not have the power and torque to deal with Australian grass and in any case they will be extremely expensive.
In actual fact Pace at this stage was buying Villiers engines for something like �28, Victa/Tigers at around �23 and Lauson's were to land for �15. (I might not be entirely accurate with my numbers.) And I may add, the America engine included the Wind-up Starter never before seen in Australia.
Fieldhouse arranged to transfer for us to use the name of Barclay Trading Company, the same Company which used to be retailing Victa in George Street, whose Managing Director I became, I arranged for 10 engines to be air freighted and we prepared 2 of them on a Pace base plate. I took one over to Victa to show them and Merv looked at it from a distance and with disgust and made some disparaging remark about the colour of the engine. But I was left alone to do my worst.
About two months before I ever heard of 4-stroke engines, I circularised all the mower manufacturers I knew of (there were frequently new manufacturers who have decided to become the next mower millionaires) and suggested that in the interest of the orderly marketing of mowers we should enter into an Australian Lawnmower Manufacturers Association. John Mason of Victa supported me and the first meeting took place in Melbourne with about 12 representatives. We agreed that we will be sensible with our discounts but we agreed virtually in nothing.
However, I had a mower with a cheap engine and while I went to all the makers I also called for a meeting of the Association, where I showed them the engine on my Pace and suggested that we all agree in a price. I could not do this lawfully these days, but the anti-trust legislation those day did not forbid this. At the time, the usual accepted price of a mower was between �46 and �53 and I suggested that we all agree that the price of 4-strokes will not be less than �56. Some of the manufacturers, I remember Pope and Turned were in unison, suggested that we should not do so. I countered that if we do not agree and what is more, if they do not wish to make a 4-stroke mower, I will be able to price my Pace 4-stroke for considerably lower, somewhere around the �38-40 mark. Knowing that no-one was as advanced as we were in importing a 4 stroke engine, I knew that all who were wishing to make a mower with a 4-stroke next season will be buying the engine from me, i.e. from Barclay Company.
And so it was, Victa, Turner, Pope, Villager, Scott Bonnar etc. all placed their orders. Most bought standard engines, but some wanted some changes and I felt that it is imperative that I should go to the manufacturer and also that I should arrange my US $ Letters of Credit in New York at a better rate than was possible in Sydney. And so I suggested that I go and all my fellows in the Pace "committee" agreed. However Merv Richardson did not and actually forbid any further talk on my trip. As he made clear, if anybody was travelling oversees it will be him or him and Harry Horton, who used to go on so-called business trips to Tahiti, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
I gave up, but Richardson and Horton were leaving for their overseas tour in a week or two and no sooner were they in the air, I was ringing Garry who agreed immediately that I should go, so on 12th May 1960 (I remember the day as my nephew was born and I visited his mother at RNS in the morning on my way to the airport). To travel OS was a great deal those days, so I was not surprised when in one of the rented rooms of the Mascot tin shed which masqueraded as the Sydney Airport building I was farewelled by Kevin Kirby, my bank manager, my production manager, John Mason of Victa and one of my mower competitors,David Hynd of Turner, my wife and one of her girlfriends.
In America I visited Tecumseh's offices in Tecumseh and in their private plane went to see the Lauson engine factory across Lake Michigan, where the engines were made. My visit to America was most interesting, but generally speaking I thought that while the production facilities were most efficient, nothing else in sales or accounts were.
Joe Galazzi, the export director of Tecumseh was a gentleman and and I was glad to see him a couple of months later in Sydney at a reception which the Kirby organisation held for him. When I was introduced by his son to Sir James, he said that he is happy to meet me as he wanted to know if indeed I was as great a bastard as his sons told him I am. He was a most genial guy with two of the most charming sons, who were most efficient businessmen also.
After a few days I returned to New York where I borrowed � million dollars from the Chemical Bank to pay for the engines I ordered. While in New York I had a cable from Carney Fieldhouse to say that the Minister of Trade has reintroduced import licensing specially for mower engines (at the request of Victa). I immediately sent a cable to Mr. McEean, the Minister of Trade, advising him that I have just spent � million dollars on engines and will he please advise me by return if I will receive the required import licenses.
While waiting for his answer, which was positive, there was nothing for me to do so I bought a return ticket to go to London on Thursday evening to visit my parents and brother. Unbeknown to me Merv Richardson and Harry Horton were also in London and apparently they just heard from Garry that I did go to America after all and the two of them decided that as soon as they get home they will sack me.
They could have done it a lot earlier, because while in London my brother arranged to meet me in the vestibule of Grosvenor House, where Merv and Harry were staying. We did not meet and by the time they got back to Sydney, I virtually sold all my engines and thus they had very little reason to sack the guy who was making money for them. In fact Merv, grudgingly at first, more enthusiastically later, accepted the fact that 4 stroke engines are not as useless as he first suggested. But he could never be convinced that they were as good as his two stroke, which were indeed very good, although having a lot more problems than a 4-stroke, made a lot of noise and polluted the air, although in those days we had no climate warming problems and did not count our carbon footprint.
And this is the "brief" story of how a 35 years old "New Australian" introduced 4-stroke engines to Australia. Today, 49 years later, Briggs and Stratton Inc.of Milwaukee, Minnesota actually owns Victa and Tecumseh closed the Lauson engine plant.
With our many thanks to Steve for this information,
