Flymo lawn mowers came to be after Swedish inventor Karl Dahlam was inspired by the invention of the hovercraft in the mid-1960s. Watching those floating boats skim across the surface of the water got him to thinking that if he applied the concept to lawn mowers he could create a mower that could be maneuvered with virtually no effort. He was right, and in 1965 the first Flymo (FLYing MOwer) went on sale.
The Flymo was an immediate hit, especially with older folks who otherwise found pushing a mower around the yard to be too strenuous. Although the company has branched out into both cordless and corded electric mowers, as well as robotic mowers in recent years, the flying mower continues to be at the center of their product line. In this series of Flymo lawn mower reviews we’re going to look at the company’s whole line of lawn mowing products.
Our Flymo Lawn Mower Reviews
History of Flymo Lawn Mowers
Flymo is a rare exception in the lawn mower industry. It’s not the product of a brand that’s been around since the Middle Ages. It’s a modern brand born in post-World War II Europe based on another modern product, the hovercraft.
At least, that’s the way it was for a time. But it seems ancient companies simply can’t resist the lure of the lawn mower because it wasn’t long after Karl Dahlam launched his line of floating mowers that Sweden’s Husqvarna Group - founded in 1689 - swooped in and purchased the brand. But there isn’t time or space here to get into a lengthy history of Husqvarna, so I’ll stick to Flymo.
Dahlam’s hovering mowers were an immediate hit in Europe, and as Dahlam (and then Husqvarna) introduced their product into market after market it seemed they couldn’t miss. Until they reached the world’s biggest lawn mower market, the US.
When the Flymo mower hit the American market in the 1980s there was considerable media buzz surrounding the product. If media buzz alone was an indicator of success, Flymo would have been a certifiable hit. Unfortunately, in this case hype did not equate to sales, likely because Americans by the 80s were already set in their ways when it came to mowers and didn’t want any of those fancy-pants European mowers messing with their lawns. Or something like that.
Anyway, the company saw the wisdom of introducing standard electric push mowers to the US market, and those mowers did find a ready audience in America. Today, they offer corded and cordless push mowers, hover mowers and a highly regarded robotic mower. In our Flymo lawn mower reviews we touch on all of them.
Where are Flymo Lawn Mowers Made?
In the 1970s when Flymo was taking off, production of their innovative floating mowers was moved to Durham in the UK, where it remains to this day. When the company expanded into standard push mowers and robotic mowers, those too were manufactured out of their Durham UK facility. While I can’t say Flymos are made in the US, Husqvarna deserves at least some credit for not moving production from the UK to China like so many of its competitors.
