Wheel Horse: forty years of garden tractors built in South Bend

1946 – 1986 in South Bend; the name to 2007

A garage on the south side of the industry: In 1946 Elmer Pond began building two-wheel, self-propelled garden tractors — the "Walk-Away," sold under the Pond name — in his two-car garage in South Bend. The firm was first the Pond Tractor Company; a naming conflict with another, related company forced the change, and the machines became Wheel Horses. Elmer's son Cecil Elwood Pond, born in South Bend on 4 June 1924, came home from Army service in 1946, joined his father, and became the company's developer and marketeer — and, on the judgment carried in his Associated Press obituary, something more: "He invented the riding mower because he didn't like to mow the lawn," his son Gary Pond said, and Michael A. Martino Jr., whose Straight from the Horse's Mouth: The Wheel Horse Story (2000) is the company's history, credits Cecil Pond with inventing the modern North American riding mower. The Associated Press obituary's own summary is the plainest: in 1946 "he and his father began making a small farm tractor out of their garage."

The four-wheel date, in conflict: The company's published history gives 1947 for the step that made the marque: "In 1947, a four-wheel tractor, the 'Ride-Away' model was introduced for garden use," built, like the Walk-Away, from what was at hand and without a hood, for easy service. Cecil Pond's biographical record gives a different year for the same step: "In 1954, Pond introduced his first 4-wheel lawn tractor, an event which altered substantially the lawn care manufacturing business." The two carriers are printed side by side and not reconciled: the company tradition dates the four-wheel Ride-Away to 1947; the founder's biographical tradition dates his first four-wheel tractor to 1954. What is not in dispute is the sequence around the dates — two-wheel machines first, four-wheel machines following, and the company built around them in South Bend either way.

The growth, in the record's own numbers: Elmer Pond designed the Uni-Drive transmission in sixty days; with it came the RJ series of 1958, whose R-J58 is carried in the company record as the most popular model and year the company ever made. Sales passed $1 million for the first time by 1957, on Cecil Pond's biographical record, and stood over $4.5 million by the end of 1959, on the company record. The Suburban models 400 and 550 followed in 1960; in 1965 the 875 and 1075 "Wheel-a-Matics" put Wheel Horse among the first makers to sell a hydrostatic-drive garden tractor. The line widened beyond tractors: the Reo snow-thrower line was added to the company's products, and in April 1968 Wheel Horse bought the Sno-Flite snowmobile line of Des Moines and built its "Safari" snowmobiles — 295 to 440 cc, priced $845 to $1,195 — until 1972, when the line was sold to Parts Unlimited. In the spring of 1969 a second production plant opened at Oevel, Belgium, as Amnor N.V.; production there ran to 1991, and the building is now Toro's European headquarters. By 1974 the company offered eleven models in four lines, the A, B, C, and D series, and its own period advertising gives the works' address in full: Wheel-Horse Products, Inc., 515 West Ireland Road, South Bend, Indiana 46614 — the catalog copy printed in the trade press of April 1973. Twenty-two attachments, garden plows among them, hung off the tractors by the obituary's count: the garden tractor was the farm tractor's small heir, and this city built it at scale.

The sales, in conflict and then in sequence: The company record gives the American Motors acquisition a date and a price: AMC acquired Wheel Horse on 24 May 1974, for $30 million. Cecil Pond's biographical record dates the same event a year later and prices it in people instead of dollars: "In 1975 Pond sold Wheel Horse Products to American Motors," at which time he oversaw over 500 workers at his plant and over 3,000 dealers selling the brand. Both accounts are printed; the record reached does not say whether 1974 is the agreement and 1975 its completion, and this section does not invent the joining fact. What followed is not in conflict. In 1982 a management buyout led by AMC officer John S. Munn took the company private as the Munn Investment Group. In mid-August 1986 the Toro Company purchased Wheel Horse for $8 million. Tractors were built under the Toro banner for two further decades, and the Wheel Horse name was eliminated from production after 2007. Where the Toro-era machines were physically built is not stated in the record reached, and this section does not assert South Bend manufacture past the 1986 sale; the documented South Bend run is the forty years 1946 to 1986. Cecil Pond died on 30 December 2011 at Palm City, Florida, aged eighty-seven, a South Bend native whose garage became a factory.

Sources:

1. The Wheel Horse company history as published (Wikipedia, "Wheel Horse," citing the Toro company history and the Standard Catalog of American Cars) — the 1946 garage start and Walk-Away; the name change; the 1947 Ride-Away; the Uni-Drive and R-J58 (1958); sales over $4.5 million by the end of 1959; Suburban 400/550 (1960); the 1965 hydrostatics; the Sno-Flite purchase (April 1968), Safari line, and 1972 sale; the Oevel plant (spring 1969–1991); the AMC acquisition of 24 May 1974 at $30 million; the 1982 Munn buyout; the Toro purchase of mid-August 1986 at $8 million; the name's elimination after 2007.
2. Cecil Elwood Pond, biographical record — born South Bend, 4 June 1924; the 1946 return and the Pond Tractor Company's naming conflict; the first four-wheel tractor dated 1954; sales over $1 million first by 1957; the sale to American Motors dated 1975, with over 500 workers and over 3,000 dealers.
3. Associated Press obituary of Cecil Pond (died 30 December 2011), as carried by Lawn & Landscape, 9 January 2012 — "began making a small farm tractor out of their garage in 1946"; the twenty-two attachments; Gary Pond's and Michael Martino's judgments.
4. Wheel Horse 1973 catalog, in the Michigan State University Turf & Recreation collection — the company's own address as printed: 515 West Ireland Road, South Bend, Indiana 46614.
5. Michael A. Martino Jr., Straight from the Horse's Mouth: The Wheel Horse Story (Stemgas, 2000) — the company's book-length history, cited by the records above.