OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums The History Forum The Old Soap Box Vortex Treeshake!

Well, thank you to Mowerfreak for his suggestion of covering the ‘Vortex’ for a bit of a write up, this one is going to involve a bit of fresh digging for me, I can say a bit about it, but it’s not as heavily ingrained in me as the VC, so I’ll get digging! On top of that, what info/leads does anyone have in their knowledge banks? I knew for example about the CSIRO’s involvement with the design of the disk, however I was unaware of the royalties issue, and it’s learning things like this that gives direction to research, so I thought it would be a good idea to throw this up as it’s own discussion and see what comes out of the woodwork.
It’s also helpful in a bit of a 2-birds way, as I’m currently working on an article on the ‘Mustang’, which of course will be quite a bit, it may even be in instalments as the mustang name has run in one form or another since the end of the VC-160 right up to now! And of course, with the name being used on the GTS, the story of the Vortex crosses the path of the mustang story too!
So, what info, chat, speculation, observation, etc, etc can we shake from the tree to get a bit of research underway for the Vortex and GTS? I’m hoping to get down to the NLA next month, any info that gives me something to dig for would be fantastic!

Hi Ty,
I can't help you with any info on these except that I had one here in excellent condition and nobody would buy it. Ended up a mate of mine bought it for his collection of Vortexes but the interest from the buying public was zero. I had a number of bog standard old Powertorques for sale and everyone that looked at the Vortex just turned their backs on it. I wonder if the sales figures of the new ones were similar. Times may have been different back then but it was obvious to me that people were put off by the fact they had no idea what was under all the plastic.

Actually, that's very much the sort of thing I'm hoping to find, this is a first hand account that helps immensely, I've often wondered why a machine with so much fanfare was rather quickly renamed and then dropped, this is where answering that question starts... I'll start looking for sales figures, maybe I'll find some old magazine articles or such that further the biew into public perception...

Were you referring to selling them new or used?

Hi Ty,
I was wondering how the public viewed them as far as new sales went, sure there will always be a rush of dedicated people wanting that new space age Victa machine, but after the rush did the rest of the public shy away from it because they couldn't see the motor?. Personally I think they are an excellent mower, but I could not believe the way people looked at it and immediately rejected it. It had done very little work, motor was clean as, I didn't even give it a wash down. I also contemplated stripping all the plastics off and just selling it as a standard Powertorque but I couldn't do that to such a good example of a mower that so many people rejected, it was really odd.

It certainly does seem there was something that dogged them from the start, the mower came with a spectacular fanfare, and yet it was short lived... I've heard stories and observed evidence to suggest that the substantial dress cowling did result in increased overheating/fire issues, I've seen a number of them with burn marks and damage in the area behind the engine under the fuel tank or near the muffler, and I've been told they did have a habit of building up a lot of unseen debris in these areas over time leading to fire and heat issues, although I only have a few observations of damaged mowers and chatter to support that at this point... perhaps that could have had an effect too...

I'm also curios as to what other models were on offer at the time, and what the price point of the Vortex was, I've seen some serials for Series 80 (Side Starter) victa's that seem to suggest an 85 build date, which if correct, would hint that they had the S80 mustang, corvette etc. running alongside the Vortex, perhaps if it was priced to highly above these that may have been a contributor...

And as seen with the decision to hold back on the 'Zip' starter with the VC, Public perception can be an incredibly powerful thing, so I'm very curious to see if indeed there was a general distrust of a mower you couldn't see the engine on....

Could be Ty, I had never thought about the fire side of having the motor all covered over but is obvious that this could happen because the plastics were a bit difficult to remove and nobody would ever do it just to clean grass out from under it

Hi Norm and Ty,
I will share what I have gleaned so far of the Vortex years.
The pic with the late Bob Hawke was one I was thinking of to describe the first appearance of the Vortex in 1983, prior to being released on the market the following year with the introduction of the powertorque engines in the range for 1984.

From a 1985 Victa ad I saw on YouTube, I have gathered that the yellow Vortex came out that year some time, along with the deleting of the hi tech CSIRO licenced blade disc with the stubby blades and replacemed with an adapted ovoid blade carrier with black plastic fans attached to the edges to form an overall round shape to the disc. I believe this was marketed as the "turbo disc" and was included on some other higher end models sold alongside the Vortex such as the white Mustang (second pic) that had the "Turbo Disc" labels on the side.
The green Mustang (first pic) was the first Mustang model with the PT motor and used the same deck casting as the 1970s store brand alloy hi arches. This would have been sold during the red Vortex era before the yellow Vortex and white Mustang took over.
The white Mustang with the same engine dress cowl but now Vortex based deck casting took over some time in 1985 (going by it's brief appearance in the 1985 aforementioned ad) and was positioned just under the yellow Vortex and later the white Mustang GTS (same style cover as Vortex) in price point. From memory of seeing them on display at stores myself, the white Mustang was only slightly cheaper (in the $400 bracket) than the Vortex/ Mustang GTS (in the $500 bracket) and basically offered a model that had the attractive features of the Vortex/white Mustang GTS except with a more conventional cover -at a lower price.
The white Mustang GTS was introduced either late 1986 or during 1987 some time. Who can forget the tv and radio ad campaign?!!
One interesting tidbit I noticed from acquiring different mowers and from observing pics is that some Vortex based alloy high arch PT models like the white Mustang and others had the holes for the Vortex cover plugged up and others had no holes present at all in the casting My one pictured hasn't got the holes. I'm not sure if this signifies an earlier year model or later.

So to sum up, the red Vortex with the much touted large diameter slotted metal blade disc with short blades was sold mainly in 1984 and perhaps into 1985 before the yellow model took over that year with the cheaper "Turbo Disc" plastic finned blade carrier and then the white"rebadged" Mustang GTS replaced that as the final "Vortex" model likely in 1987 and production probably ran for about two years before it ceased for good, even if the base it introduced lived on in other models until 1992 when the steel base shaped alloy deck was introduced.

Well, that also lines up well with the V-Code entries, I've noted 3 of them;

1) 1983-1984 VM168A2 w/ Blade Carrier CA09363A - Labelled 'Vortex'
2) 1985-1986 AJ059A5 w/ Blade Carrier CA09377A - Labelled 'Vortex'
3) 1986-1987 AJ059A6 w/ Blade Carrier CA09377A - Labelled 'Powertorque Vortex'

I'm also noticing at a cursory glance that the CA09363A Blade Carrier is listed on no other mower in the book, No idea why it's suddenly called "Powertorque Vortex" though...

When I showed a friend a pic of a white GTS Mustang he thought it looked like it was from 2001 A Space Odyssey. He'd never seen one before and he used to dabble with Victa 160s in go carts and even a bike!
The cover is light and flimsy when you hold it in your hands. It's a very thin veneer indeed. I do think they put in well thought out vents in the right places for good cooling and they even included a black plastic piece around the carburettor and fuel tank to prevent debris from getting in.
There's also a fancy looking metal box concealing the muffler, screwed to the deck, to act as a heat shield for the plastic cover.

I always thought that Victa were just trying to push the envelope with the fad of Space type Movies that were around in the late 1970's onwards, sadly the lawnmower buying public were just not sold on the looks of it I always thought and a mower had to have an exposed engine to see what we were buying. The idea of putting an engine inside a plastic box was always a recipe for disaster.

The one I had was choked full of grass when I removed the plastic cowl. I used it after cleaning and then the next time I removed the cowl again only to find quite an amount of cuttings inside again. Honestly, not acceptable.

I've always felt air cooled engines need to be out in the air and not hidden inside a designer box to look pretty.

Going forward many years to now, they'd probably sell like hot cakes as everyone wants something different don't they ?

Cheers,
BB.

That is probably why I like my bare bones cheapest model green steel deck Victa Powertorque model from the late 80s/early 90s vintage as it has the smallest engine cover of the lot with the barrel fins fully exposed.
This thing is seriously options challenged with non ball bearing wheels, plain non comfort grip handles and no full wheel covers, just centre caps with the plastic wheel splines showing. Love it!!
Thankfully it's missing (penetrating) rust options as well. You'd like this one B_B.

MF, I have the same feelings for my grey 1990 Victa standard

Well, Now that I'm home from work, I've dug into the books with a closer eye, and it does seem rather interesting...

From what I can tell, that CSIRO Disk must be numbered CA09636A, that part number only appears on the listing for the first Vortex, it's on nothing else in the book, and the blade set with it has the same story (CA09371A)

Sure enough, as above the next two Vortex Listings have the CA09377A Disk, which I would assume is the plastic surround fan-disk, as whilst it's use was limited to the 85-86 Vortex, the 86-87 Vortex and Mustang, the 86-87 Craftsman Dlx, and finally the 87-88 Mustang GTS, the matching blade set (CA09306S) Shows up all over the place on a disk labled CA09320K, so here's guessing thats what you need to scratch over the part number if you rip off the plastic surround!

Now, here is where it gets... Interesting?..Vortex was released in 83 with the ST12636A Starter Assembly, there is a mustang the AA050A3 which also run from 1983-84, with the same Starter assembly, which was also fitted to the Sabre, Commando, Corsair, Craftsman (Std & Dlx) Silver Streak and Tiger of the same model year...

Then the following Vortex, Mustang, etc, all have the ST12651A Starter... but the 84 Sports, Corsair and Craftman's have the one from 83...Even the 85-86 Wildcat retains it, while the others by then have all shifted...

Now, I do recall the oldest power-torque starters being slightly different to newer ones, and maybe that's what I'm seeing here, But from 87 it all shifts again to the ST12645A, and I don't recall seeing 3 variations on the power-torque starter that far back... Also, the earlier starter was, at least to my knowledge, the biggest, the size dropping later on to cut cost... so why it would be continued on the lower end mowers seems hard to work out... and these numbers would suggest a total of 9 power-torque mowers released all at once in 1983...which seems odd to my understanding...

This comes from the official Victacode Spare Parts QR Guide for 1970-91... Maybe I need to pull out the Microfiche...

It looks like you're opening up another can of worms there Mr Davis!!
And I thought it was a simple case of the larger diameter starter on older models and smaller version on later ones after a certain date.
The reason they may have continued using the very first starter on cheaper models was simply a way to use up excess inventory of it at the factory. Victa did funny things with wheels in the mid 70s like using the older type rear 8" wheels on the Victa 500 Twin and seeing some self propelled wheels on Victa VC Sports for example.

From the thread titled What About Now?
I think this older thread will be of interest in relation to this topic and what you said above.
https://www.outdoorking-forum.com.au/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/85219/1.html


Tyler that's it!! Looks nice.

A good point, there does seem to be a lot that was done to run out old excess stock, I never thought about the possibility it could have been done in such an organised way as to specifically designate old stock as replacement parts specific for some models, but then, I guess if you have a new way of doing things and old stuff you want to get rid of, it's probably best to limit the old stock to cheaper machines...

it's also possible that maybe the cowling on the later vortex mowers was moulded to suit the newer starter? only a thought, it's been years since I was inside a vortex, and I wasn't checking for that at the time lol!

As for that link, the thread about Kenny's... More good info, but damn a hard read, the idea of a commemorative display machine being tossed about as the loan mower, whoever made that decision wouldn't want to bump into me unless they were looking for an earfull!!!