OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Finding and Swapping Wanted Victa Monaro

Yuk !, anything before the Ecotech version is awful. They perfected the Commodore with the Nissan RB30 powered VL and then again with the current VF styling in either V6 or V8.

Hi Norm,

The HQ was based around mix and match, this way the engineering costs were lowered and the production line was simplified, remember they had 400 market gardeners climb in and out each and every single one before they came off the end of the line.

G'day all punters.
Many thanks to Glo Mod Gadge for pointing out that 'Monaro' was first used - as a brand name - to
replace the stencil brand, Mayfair, for mid-arch lawnmowers sold to mass retailers.

Monaro was certainly used, as well, on high-arch alloy-base machines.

My best guess is that 'Mayfair' was too upper-class for egalitarian Australia - at that time.
'Monaro', like 'Torana', captured the Australian spirit.
Mower followed automobile.

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Jack

It was the T4 model and that came with the Ecotec series.
The VP and VR were not bad and I liked their exhaust much more than the quieter but dull Ecotec series. Good low to mid range performance though.
If you like the VL, you may as well just get the even better Australian built Nissan Skyline from the same period, diff noise issues notwithstanding!

It was indeed; here are a couple of Trove ads for those.
Eric Andersons 25/1/77 http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/224511532

Young's 4/10/79 http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110602591 Interestingly, this ad claims the Monaro is 'Made by Victa exclusively for
Young's'!

These are listed as 'Store Brand High Arch' models when they first appear in the VictaCode 'quick reference parts book 1970-1991', for the 1977-78 model year.
Later on, from 1980-83, they were listed as the 'Mayfair High Arch' model.

Well, the Mayfair series was the 'generic storebrand' which was sold through department and hardware stores who didn't order large enough quantities at one time [i.e. for 'single drop' delivery] to qualify for their own 'house brand' labels.

They weren't sold through Victa servicing dealers, as far as I can recall.

As retailer buying groups gained in supply chain dominance [from about 1970 onwards] within the appliance trade, the Victa 'house brands' proliferated; at the expense of the Mayfair branding, I'd think .

Would the Pace branded Victa high arch from the late 1970s been a result of a similar arrangement as the high arch "Victa Monaro". My late gran had one of these Pace branded high arch mowers. The Pace "banner; was also imprinted on the thumb latch catcher itself.

"We haven't been able to identify what 'NARTA' stands for" National Associated Retail Traders of Australia.

I can't get my mind around an organization like that generating an impostor Victa model.
How would the average punter know?

G'day folks,
Thanks for that, maxwestern. That mob looks like the right one, and they were well established by the 1970's.

Not quite; Pace was by the 1970's a 'second tier' brand like Mayfair, and sold through non-dealer retailers.

Well, the machines were made by Victa! IIRC, Victa themselves encouraged the proliferation of storebrands, as the minimum order to qualify for 'house brand' labelling was only about 200 mowers, taken as a single delivery.

Were there any other store brands in disguise like Victa Monaro?
Two from the late 1970s early 1980s era I have come across that I suspect were at least non dealer retail models like the mid price positioned high arch Pace mentioned, were the low arch Victa Commodore and the 125cc Victa 2 Stroke High Arch and possibly the Victa Corsair (which I believe ended up being the same as the Victa Corvette at the end).
It would seem that the mower dealers in the "Monaro era" only sold models from the official Victa catalogue such as the Corvette, Silver streak, Mustang and self propelled model.
There was also the MSAA mower dealer store branding to add to confusion, as well as Victa catalogue models probably available in some non dealer outlets.
It was certainly a different era back then.

MF the world was a different place, China was not a manufacturing country, a bit of stuff was coming through Hong Kong but I can't recall seeing anything with "Made in China" on it, now it is hard to find anything without that written on it. Once that wave started we ended up awash with everything as well as stores selling 90% Chinese products such as Bunnings and this then slowly wiped out all the other stores that had been household names for generations selling all the Victa type store brand products

That insidious Lima agreement by that traitor Cough Whitlam, who willingly signed our life away.
Look now, Toe -nail Abbott cut all funding to keep our car industry alive and nuked our skill set for good. Tourism and services will not make for an adequate replacement.

Quite possibly, but it's a bit difficult to work out retrospectively!
About all we have to go by, is the model names listed in this doco; https://www.outdoorking-forum.com.au/pages/Victa/Models/Models_1970_1991.pdf
As 'Monaro' doesn't appear there, it was a 'storebrand label' for sure.

Victa seem to have largely departed the individual 'storebrand label' sales model in the early-mid 1980's, around the time of the introduction of the PowerTorque engine. The exception being the Craftsman brand.

Have a look through that doco linked above. It's scanned as images though, so a text search doesn't work.
Yes, there was a fairly clear distinction back then, between servicing dealers and retailers. The servicing dealers had the full 'Victa brand' catalogue range, and the non-servicing retailers had the lower-priced second-tier brands and 'storebrands'.
When the retailer buying groups got into the act, their bulk purchasing power gave them a significant price advantage over individual servicing dealers.

The MSAA became the dealers' buying group, so that they could offer 'second-tier' mowers under their exclusive 'Craftsman' storebrand, as well as the premium range models. The Victa Craftsman mowers were very competitively priced against the retail chains' storebrands, in the 1970s.
Victa, Rover, Masport and SupaSwift all made mowers under the Craftsman banner for the MSAA.

There were very few non-dealer outlets for the top-line Victa range in those days. AFAIK, those few were hardware chain branches [e.g. McEwans in Vic, Nock & Kirby in NSW] who offered servicing at that store.
Well, in hindsight it was a time of transition.
From mowers being repairable durable goods, which were largely sold by servicing dealers, towards the current situation - most of them are throwaway items, sold via 'big box' stores.

The exception is the 'commercial duty' models, marketed through the remaining servicing dealers to the contractor/council market.

That pdf was very useful. Unfortunately, the code is missing from one of my mowers but I am pretty confident of two possible codes pertaining to it.
I have worked out the precise vintage of two other machines of mine and now know which mower was my nan's. THANKS!!

By the way, I appreciated your filling me in further on what went on with store brands and other mower sales practises in the 1970s Gadge. I read that with just as much interest and intrigue as the link you supplied. I just got caught up looking at the list of codes, and then seeing what was on some of my collection and had concentrated on that in my post.

De nada, MF.

I reckon it takes someone who was involved with the OPE industry in that timeframe [as I was, through my family's OPE business in Cobram, Vic], to be able to elaborate on the industry changes which were then happening. I do feel that this history should be documented, to the best of my abilities.