Convenience of these two mowers is Four-Stroke versus Two-Stroke.  Ever tried pushing a Honda Four Stroke engine bolted on a Victa Mower deck?  They're real heavy!  A 22-inch may not go through your garden shed door, ever thought of that?  And a 22-inch makes a big difference on labor saving, over the 18-inch.  The real slug about Four Stroke versus Two Stroke, is having to change that 4-stroke oil!  Two stroke with the old petroil system as it was called in the 1930s, burns up the oil mixed with the fuel!  That doesn't make the Two-Stroke too environmentally friendly, but the old Victa was 'Green' only in colour, that was before green meant kinder to the planet!  It needs the oil changed with Flushing Oil, a real bad substance today!  The Victa RAZOR isn't really made by 'old Victa', the company was bought over, old Victa had smaller wheels while on the RAZOR, all four are 8-inch wheels, a lot easier to push but maybe not to steer.

This mower doesn't have a steering wheel but has little front wheels to help steer it!  Steel or Alloy Deck?  Steel rusts, many steel deck Victas don't really suit wives -old rust buckets!

The Victa Vortex is one easy mower to push, many push mowers with Briggs engines aren't easy to push, so you get that whole self-propelled market with key start and so forth that not everyone who has it really needs, not if they can use Ebay that is!  Self-propelled is longer, will it fit your shed?  Self-propelled are real slow too!  Both the Vortex and the 1965 Corvette 4 are alloy decks, the '65 Corvette is just about one of the first alloy decks Victa made, but the 1965 Consul was an alloy deck too, only didn't have the 'low profile chrome cooling coul' of the Corvette!  Victas with steel decks rust.

"In Australia where grass growth is prolific more Victa lawn mowers are sold than all other makes combined and in many countries throughout the World Victa is keeping grass tidy under varying conditions..."   

The black flexi-hose is for the motor's breather tube on the Vortex.  (above).  The air needed for combustion comes down that flexi-hose, its 'dry' air filter is in the throttle red lever control box on the push-bar (see above) and may need cleaned!  On the '65 Corvette 4, a 'wet' air filter was down on the side of the motor.  It was of the 1930s 'ancient' oil-bath air filter type!  Dust in the air would stick to the oil in the sponge and was washed out at the oil-change by cleaning it in petrol!  On the old '65 Victa there's a double pull, 2-point - these white bars across the push bar - collapsable push bar release, it fits in a small car trunk/boot compared to the car trunk/boot needed for the Vortex. 

There's a cheap mower in Canada with the 2009 descendant of the '65 Tecumseh motor, the Lawnboy Insight 3 in 1 may have a parts problem in a year's time - but let's get to the way these machines actually cut grass, rather than looking at their motors.  The Vortex system is not on this Vortex, it has the conventional Victa Power-Torque Swing Blade Cutting System.  Swing Blade is on both these old mowers, the '65 and the '84.  It's a system unique in lawn mowers for coping with tree roots in your lawn, the swing blade just swings away.  When you clean underneath, seeing a swung blade lets you know, that if this weren't a Victa, you'd have bought a new mower by now!  Hitting a tree root with any other mower blade cutting system will bend the mower's crankshaft and ruin the mower instantly!  The GOOD (BAD) thing about these two old mowers or why you'd be using them today, is the state of affairs on the continuing saga of the Dead Man's Handle!

Don't buy an old Ebay mower unless you're deliberately 'ducking' the hassle of using DMH!

The remarkable '65 and earlier Victa mowers have a huge steel grass box, the Vortex has a plastic one that is best fitted after the mower has been warmed-up good.  If you have the 2-stroke dying out on you, soon after you've started a cut, let the machine warm-up first, 2-strokes need longer to warm up than Tecumseh 4-strokes, its the thin aluminum walls against the Victa iron block.  You may notice the dents in the steel grass catch box?  That shows the power in the swing-blade Tecumseh motor, it's only 125cc to the the 2-stroke Victa 160cc Power-torque, but as a new machine it powders grass without the Modern Day Victa attachment for that!  Ebay mower motors may be less powerful than when new!

The Victa Vortex is certainly a big improvement on the old '65 machine in not only ease of use, but in the way the lawn actually responds to its cutting regime.  Lawns grow much better with the Vortex and it is a great machine for moving around a treed lawn!  You might think you don't want a lawn to grow better, but that's what makes it greener, good cutting helps do that!  The main Vortex problem is the rubber grip on the sparking plug, compared to the old slide and screw sparking plug grip on the '65 Corvette 4.  The rubber spark plug grip can be problematic, but if necessary buy a new rubber grip.  The original one is red and the new ones are black.  The black ones do work a lot better as the rubber is less perished.

The Victa rotary mower leaves no stripey as it has no rollers.  It's not a 'real' lawnower as the cylinder cutter roller mower but a bit of an imposter.  Like Crocodile Dundee in New York, you can put a 2-stroke Victa away in the shed without all the fuss and maintenance his girl -or the roller mower cutter must have.  Mown grass mustn't be allowed to congeal in the four-stroke machine oil though, it's a bit more bother and there's a propeller underneath, so too much vibration suggests it's time to get the 'old girl' in for a service!

I hope you enjoyed my quick guide to Victa mowers, you're not likely to find many in North America but may spot them when visiting the markets where Victa is sold.  Always stay well clear of working rotary mowers, they can kick up stones with enough power to dent steel and their operators often wear protective clothing.