The Victa VC-160.The story of the VC-160 starts a few years before its release, in a quiet experiment on the public Victa used to sure up it’s design.
From the time vista released it’s first carburettor, the coveted ‘Brass Nut’ right trough to the late 60’s, the basic design had remained unchanged, aside some simple variations, the removal of the unreliable Brass nut mounting, and later the swap to a clip over design for the slide cap, as opposed to an imbedded cir-clip design marks the transition from the first steps to the 3f, then the change to larger inlet ports gave us the 3l, and the introduction of the 160cc engine added the 3s to the line, in fact, the greatest change to the design seen in a 15 year period was the little known 3l/f industrial, with it’s added needle controlled main jet.
By the late 60’s many competitors were utilising ‘governing’ on lawnmower engines, and in a number of cases, this involved governed carburettors, it was a field Victa needed to move into. At the same time Victa was working away at the idea of the ‘Hi-Arch’ base, looking to overcome the challenge of thicker, longer and wetter grass without removing the catcher, as well as the concept of decompression/recoil start combinations to make starting the mower much easier.
By this point in time, many of these advancements were either in practice or at play on competing mowers, particularly on the international scene, and it was time for Victa to either go big, or go home, they were set to fall behind.
The decision was made to use the start of a new decade as the turning point, and work was under way to design a mower to usher in a whole new path for Victa in 1970. The biggest test of the late 60’s was the carburettor, between 1966 and 1969, three designs made it through enough testing to look like viable candidates, the 3Q, the G2 and later the G3.
The first on to hit public testing was the 3q, Victa still hadn’t set itself on governing the carburettor in 1966, but needed to keep the option of governing opened, and was also looking to create something more more efficient both for the user, and for the company, and by 1967 they had the 3q sitting on the table, it’s plastic slide and top cap were intended to make it easier to come up with a governing solution later, it’s simple design and lighter alloy help cut manufacturing costs, and it’s Venturi and jet design was an increase on operating efficiency.
In order to test its viability beyond the lab, it was quietly and randomly rolled out. Batches were sent to select dealers across the country, and retrofitted to mowers before sale. Victa felt it had passed enough testing to warrant a release, but wanted a new level of feedback on it, and so it was never completely released as the carry on a specific model of mower, as such, the same mower bought on the same day from 2 different stores could land you with 2 different carburettors.
Shortly after this test began, the G2 design reach a point Victa wanted to do the same for it, and so it too was released as a retrofit sent to select dealers, and the overlap on these two tests means that some machines (in particular the Corvette and Cortina from 1967/8) can be found original with a G2, a 3Q or a 3S. The G2 started having problems pretty soon into the tests, issues with the springs stretching or catching debris and failing to operate properly, collisions with the vane and flywheel, jetting issues and trouble stopping the machine easily became the main feedback from the field, which lead to some extensive remodelling, shrinking the vane and adding a deflector in the cowl, electronic cut-of, new jetting, and a more robust spring set up lead here to the G3.
The G3 was also released for random public testing around 1968/69, either fitted by the dealer before sale as had been done with the G2/3Q or sent as the replacement for the G2 when customers who had landed the G2 had issues, unlike the G2/3Q the G3 also required a small deflector inside the cooling cowl, and victa provided some dealers with cowls to retrofit, and others with deflectors to attach.
The G3 solved the issues encountered with the G2, and with this, the G2 was superseded before ever being officially released, as was the 3Q, the G3 creating a green light for vista to go ahead with governing made it obsolete before it could debut. By the time this testing was sorted, the design for the Hi-Arch base was ready, and the release of a new generation was looking good, however, Victa had hit a bit of an issue with the recoil/decompression starting idea… Public Perception…
Early manual wind pull cords and recoil starters where what lead to the creation of an impulse starter, pulling against the full compression of the engine was an uncomfortable, hard and jerky operation, and the impulse started overcame this, allowing the mower to be started with less strength required. However on budget end models, the recoil was still in use, leading to it being associated with a harder start on a poor-man’s machine. After toying with this and trialling a few mowers with the set-up, Victa shelved the idea in fear of the public looking at the recoil starter on the new model and deciding to go to another mower altogether.
And and here we hit 1970, the great unveil of the first generation of the VC-160, the MKI, or V80. This mower introduced with it the first true release of the V70 engine, whilst some pre-’70 use of the label and design had been around both as part of testing and to help pave the way for the release, the true debut was here, on the VC-160.
With it’s new V70 engine, set and forget governed throttle, Hi-Arch “Cut in the Wet” base and incredible new look design, the mower was a perfect flagship and poster child for a new era of Victa! A year later, the V96 or MKII was released, whilst the appearance was mostly unchanged, Victa decided on this model it was time to go ahead with the combination of a recoil starter and decompression valve, opting instead to fight public perception through marketing. The impulse starter and its now rare green shroud ring were scrapped, and on went the recoil.
The addition of this recoil and decompressor meant a new engine, and so in this change the V160 MKII engine was born, which was marketed successfully on the back of the success of the V160 MKI, and to tackle the public fear of the recoil, an extensive marketing campaign, and a catchy name for the design, the name “Zip Start” lead to one of the most advertised year in Victa’s history. Televisions, Radio’s, Papers and even a few famous faces were all lined up and pumping out the word “Zip” whilst still keeping sure the presence of that “Mow in the Wet” tagline the VC had ushered in a year before.
The Plan was a success, and the MKII VC outsold its 1970 predecessor quite notably. However the 1972 move to the V111 or MKIII VC was one of far less fanfare… not due to any issue with the machine itself, in fact it was the superior machine compared to both the MKI & MKII from an operation standpoint, and it’s sales were equal to the massive pump out of the MKII, possibly even higher… But there was nothing new to talk about…
The 1972 MKIII only had subtle changed from the year before, small adjustments to address design issues… The MKI and MKII had issues getting the rear door at the right height to easily insert the tongue of the catcher, so the MKIII had a hinged lower segment on the door to allow the lounge to easily push in. The locks for the handle bar folds on the base were prone to mis-engage or stiffen up, casing the handles to come out of the locked position, and the decade old metal tooth heigh adjuster was as prone to failing as it always had been leaving the mower likely to simply drop below the lowest tooth and even dump itself on the ground in an apparent “I Don’t Want To” display of a tantrum, so deep plastic teeth were exchanged.
Small changes, yes, important ones, no one likes a mower to fall on the ground or fold up while cutting, but not the kind of things you put in the ’72 Model TV advert… “Hey, you know how last year we made a mower that likes to dig random holes in your yard, well we’ve fixed that now, come buy one”… Just not the line you want on your brochure… So the VC160 MKIII was by all measures a perfect flagship model, but with nothing new to say, a flagship to what?
And so by 1973’s model release, it was scrapped, instead the MKI VC-Mustang sat in it’s place… The First VC-Mustang was, by all technical measure, nothing new to rave about either, it was an almost identical mower on all measures bar one; Appearance… Same engine, same carry, it had the hi-arch, the zip start, the z-fold, magic eye, 8” rears and well, was the same mower… it’s only real advancement was a much simpler and more reliable catch-latch mechanism, BUT, it looked quite different, and so could be easily advertised as something new.
74’ gave the release of the G4 carry and a new engine, plenty of selling points, and the VC-Mustang (Later just Mustang) name continued on over numerous new designs and features, still being the flagship model name today!
The VC-160, a mower that signified substantial innovation and advancement for Victa, and stands as the flagship model for one of Victa’s true milestone moments!
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