Wheel Horse

Wheel Horse is a well known producer of garden tractors and lawn mowers that is about as American as apple pie. It was started from humble beginnings by former owner Elmer Pond in 1946. He began building two-wheel, self-propelled "Walk Away" garden tractors. The Walk Aways were constructed using a channel iron frame in conjunction with various combinations of spare car and motorcycle parts. A few years later in 1947 the company produced another line of wheel horse tractors called Ride Aways. They were to first of his creations that sported four wheels and were made from crude parts and without a hood for easy service access.

At the onset of the 1950's Pond's wheel horse tractors really began to take off as they became much more inexpensive, increasingly useful, and easy to maintain. By the second half of the decade Pond's Wheel Horse tractors were selling throughout the country extremely well. This helped fund the creation of a new and improved generation of Wheel Horses which were much more consistent and standardized then any of the company's previous creations.

The most popular of this new generation of machines was the RJ-58 Wheel Horse. Released in 1958, it came without a mowing deck, but allowed customers to later add the decks as add-ons if they so desired. This cutting edge machine featured a three speed transmission. It took Elmer Pond only 60 days to create the Uni Drive transmission that defined the RJ-58. The RJ-58 Wheel Horse boasted a powerful Kohler k-90 engine. Its cousin the RJ-35 was powered by a Clinton B-1200. Another later line of tractors based on the RJ-58 was the RJ-25, which had a 2.5 HP engine manufactured by Briggs. Each of the RJ models featured the same assortment of attachments, but during the second half of the decade their wheel colors changed slightly.

The desire for Wheel Horses grew so much that by the end of 1959 they couldn’t keep up with the influx of orders. Since the two-car garage would no longer accommodate Pond's thriving venture, he soon moved the entire operation to South Bend, Indiana.

In 1960 two new models of Wheel Horses were introduced. The new additions included the Model 400, which sported a four-horse power Kohler engine and the Model 550, which packed a strong punch thanks to a 5.5 horse power Techumseh-Lauson engine. The Model 400 and 550 were such a hit with with suburban homeowners that they quickly became known as the quintessential Suburban garden tractors.

Pond's company was eventually acquired in the 1970's by the American Motors Corporation. In 1986 Wheel Horse was purchased by Toro, who owns the company still to this day. They have since produced the next few generations of wheel horse tractors and lawn mowers.