I have heard a lot about these midwestern mowers. Does anyone have any opinions on their value? I am interested in mowing primarily 1/2 to 1 acre lawns. Thanks!
Simplicity is one of the few homeowner lawnmower manufactures that builds their own machines. If you are going to cut a lot of grass (1/2 to 1 acre lots can add up quick) I recommend looking at their Derby line of mowers. The transaxle walkbehinds are virtually indestructable and last a long time with very little maintenace. I had a Woods (built using Ferris plans, Ferris builds the Derby and is owned by Simplicity) CM-36 that was 10 years old when I sold it and the guy who bought it is still using it.
They advertise them on the weather channel and if they mowed that lawn with it, it does stripe nice, but it doen't go very straight.
When I first started mowing, the guy I cut with had a Deutz-Allis. DA got bought up and eventually became Simplicity. It was a pretty good mower (for a tractor) but I'd prefer a zero turn or a WB. The reason it stripes well is because of a roller on the back of the deck. It also helps with scalping. They are expensive also.
My first commercial mower was a Simplicity 42" (73?) Before the Toro GroundMaster, that's what we used to use! Simplicity 48" w/ 16hp Briggs cast-iron. Then we had "trails": 2 additional mower decks - each with their own recoil start 9hp cast-iron Briggs. The early ones were gear drive, then later hydrostats made everything a whole lot nicer. These (1975-1980) were heavy-duty, commercial-grade tractors and decks. ALL had full-length rollers and striped real, real nice. With "trails" that 12' stripe was simply awesome. In the early 80's, Simplicity became more popular with the homeowner market and did away with the full-length rollers. I get a kick out of the Simplicty add, though. The "professionally" photographed ad looks about 60% as nice as Eric's "amateur" photos. They oughta pay Eric to shoot with their tractors on his lawns.
