Who remembers the Flymo?

bhayden said:

Not sure where to post this thread. I'd been thinking about the old Flymo ads for a while after discussion of "blow by" with the mulching kit installed on lawn tractors. The Flymo was as I recall advertised to be like a hovercraft lawn mower. Which of course begs the question, if you flatten down all the grass with down force to suspend the Flymo how in the heck do to the blades ever have anything to cut?

Flymo Electric Lawnmower

Anyhoot, this showed up on the local Craigslist:
https://flic.kr/p/zYaikQ by Alden_Sloe, on Flickr

Flymo Electric Mower - $125 (Olympia)

Flymo electric mower - works decent. Cool collectible.

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I had one of those when I was in PA...it was perfect mower for the slopes...

Never have seen one operate in person but there is a dealer up in Clinton Iowa where we had stopped one day looking for some Lawnboy wheels. He took me out in the storage building and shower me his restored 1969 Chevy and then he showed me the Flymo that he had up on the shelf. Pretty cool!! Bill

I picked this one up about 2 years ago on EBay. Toro sold this in 1965 only. Roger

I had no idea the Flymo would have so many people remember them. All the videos I saw on You Tube they were going over an already immaculately cut lawn. The most I saw "cut" was the tops off some clover. What happens when you try to mow 3-4" tall grass?

That gold Toro is pretty cool. I'm guessing that's the 2 cycle engine. Did they use the same 2 cycle that Lawn Boy did?

The Toro uses a Power Products/Tecumseh engine. 1965 was at the time the name changed because Tecumseh bought Power Products. Some parts are the old Power Products design. Crankcase, cylinder the basic short block is Power Products, The external parts like recoil starter, magneto, points, flywheel are Tecumseh. It will mow what ever grass you put it on. There is no height adjustment other than changing engine RPM and the air blowing on the ground. If you start over long grass like 4 inch it will continue to hover lower and lower until it is at the height it hovers at. The first pass might be 3 1/2 inches and the next down some more until the air starts blowing on the real ground. It really doesn't mow higher than a bit more than 1 1/4 inches. It is also almost impossible to mow straight rows as the mower has a tendancy to move around and down hill on its own. If you like the striped look of a lawn it isn't for you. Roger

So, I'm driving thru my neighborhood last summer and spot this guy using one of those on his huge front yard. I stop, get out and was standing on the sidewalk when he came around for another pass. He stops, shuts it off and we start talking about it. Says he bought it in England and had it shipped back over here. Then he asks me if I wanted to make a couple of rounds..........HE** YES! So, off I go....Reminded me of using a big floor buffer in the barracks back in the day. After I had all the fun I could stand, I parked it back in front of him. We talked some more then the dude says he's had enough exercise, picks it up and heads to the garage to get his rider. NEAT STUFF...........

I had no idea this would open up such a discussion. I had thought, memory of the TV commercials, that this was just a gimmick; it slices, it dices... but wait, if you order now!

A little research suggests Flymo was/is a British company. It was funded under the Eletrolux umbrella of which Husqvarna is part of. Early on they did both electric and 2 cycle versions. The 2 cycle engines were most likely Tecumseh/Aspera engines. Aspera also being an England based company.

My thought that they would be Lawn Boy engines is likely very wrong. Lawn Boy was a spin off of Evinrude and tied in with Briggs. Once fierce competitors Lawn Boy ended up being bought by Toro. So it's really interesting that Toro branded a Flymo back in 1965.


Maybe that was the way they gained entry into the US market? Anyway, that gold Toro my actually be gold as far as collectible.

zeeker said:

So, I'm driving thru my neighborhood last summer and spot this guy using one of those on his huge front yard.... Says he bought it in England ... Then he asks me if I wanted to make a couple of rounds..........HE** YES

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Was this guys name Tom Sawyer? :sidelaugh

Seriously. If the one "locally" on Craigslist wasn't a 90 minute drive I'd love to take it for a test mow. Probably a good thing it's not or I might come back with more "collectible" stuff I don't have time or room for :hide:.

I picked up a newer one this summer at an auction. It was marketed by Noma.
Has a 2 stroke engine.
I have yet to get it running to try it but I think it's a cool idea.

Perfectly flat 19 inch metal blade. If the blade had lift it wouldn't hover. I just remembered you can adjust the height on mine a bit. There are 3 different sized spacers between the engine and blade that can be moved to change blade height. For what it worth Lawn Boy had no relationship with Briggs other than to sometimes use their engines. The same was true with other companies that Lawn Boy sold their engines to including John deere and Toro. This is a picture of my 1995 Toro Recycler with LB power. This was made before LB and Toro were one company. Roger

rhenning said:

Perfectly flat 19 inch metal blade. If the blade had lift it wouldn't hover. For what it worth Lawn Boy had no relationship with Briggs other than to sometimes use their engines.

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Stephen Foster Briggs in person, not the company with his name attached. The history I found was that after B&S went public the board of directors decided they didn't want anything to do with the marine outboard engine market of which B&S had gotten into by buying Evinrude/OMC. Mr. Briggs decided he personally wanted part of that action and became an investor. IIRC, OMC was the parent company that ended up owning Lawn Boy.

I also read somewhere that the Flymo had a separate blade/fan from the cutting blade that created the lift. Can anyone confirm or deny this rumor? Seems that if the cutting blade is perfectly flat then there must be something else creating the "lift".

Yes it has a very large fan the blows air down around the edge of the mower decK. The fan is about 12 inches in diameter but the blades throw the air to the side not down. When the air goes out to the side the ahape of the deck turns the air down towards the ground for lift. I will try to get a some pictures for you after lunch. Roger

This is what the bottom of the Flymo looks like. I think I should have said it uses an axial flow fan. Ask if you have anymore questions or want other pictures. Roger