Curbside Classic: 1964 Mongomery Wards 3hp Lawn Mower – Or Why I'll Never Buy A New Mower

After a record mild winter, the grass is calf-high, and its time to bring out my fine vintage mowers from the shed. I don’t know about you, but lawnmowers were a critical childhood gateway to satisfy my childhood lust for cars and internal combustion devices. My first mowing job came at the age of eight, when a neighbor inquired if anyone in our household was willing to make fifty cents. My mother had to start the Briggs and Stratton, and I was off on a long career of mowing, with an easy-to-push mower like this one.

But I hate the evolution of mowers; they parallel that of cars: they’re full of safety devices and cheaper materials that have made them heavy and inefficient. I gave up on my crappy new mower years ago, and have assembled a mini fleet of the finest, lightest aluminum and magnesium deck best-mowing mowers ever. These are the equivalent of old Porsches and Bugattis. And the price was right: I found them sitting at the curb with “Free” signs on them.

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  • Jkross22 When I think about products that I buy that are of the highest quality or are of great value, I have no idea if they are made as a whole or in parts by unionized employees. As a customer, that's really all I care about. When I think about services I receive from unionized and non-unionized employees, it varies from C- to F levels of service. Will unionizing make the cars better or worse?
  • Namesakeone I think it's the age old conundrum: Every company (or industry) wants every other one to pay its workers well; well-paid workers make great customers. But nobody wants to pay their own workers well; that would eat into profits. So instead of what Henry Ford (the first) did over a century ago, we will have a lot of companies copying Nike in the 1980s: third-world employees (with a few highly-paid celebrity athlete endorsers) selling overpriced products to upper-middle-class Americans (with a few urban street youths willing to literally kill for that product), until there are no more upper-middle-class Americans left.
  • ToolGuy I was challenged by Tim's incisive opinion, but thankfully Jeff's multiple vanilla truisms have set me straight. Or something. 😉
  • ChristianWimmer The body kit modifications ruined it for me.
  • ToolGuy "I have my stance -- I won't prejudice the commentariat by sharing it."• Like Tim, I have my opinion and it is perfect and above reproach (as long as I keep it to myself). I would hate to share it with the world and risk having someone critique it. LOL.