![]() He says Alamo is hoping some former Dixie Chopper employees might want to return and work for Alamo. That location currently manufactures Rhino Ag equipment and Malone says it has capacity to take on the added production. ![]() The company is working now to transition equipment from Dixie Chopper’s former manufacturing facility in Fillmore, Ind., to Alamo’s Gibson City, Ill., location (about 150 miles away). Most of our brands have a loyal following,” he says. We’re buying that brand equity and the value of the brand. ![]() “We leave brands in place because every company we purchase has brand equity. Dixie Chopper will remain its own brand and remain as a completely separate business from Bush Hog. One of the unique things about Alamo is that we do have competing brands, so that we can maximize our reach in the market,” he says. “Dixie Chopper opens up a broader opportunity to sell through the commercial landscaper channels. So aside from stressing the mower's speed and the attendant brag factor, the company pushes its "velvet touch control" system, intended to decrease driver fatigue by reducing resistance on the steering levers - particularly important "for the ladies," said Rick Judy, Dixie Chopper's road manager.One of Alamo’s companies, Bush Hog, already produces zero-turn mowers, but Malone says the brand has mostly grown through its agricultural dealer channel. 6 with the Sta-Bil North Carolina Turf Classic in Shelby, N.C.įew American homes have 8.73-acre lawns - the area that the XT3200-72 can trim per hour. Little wonder that mowers featuring Dixie Chopper engines are popular on the lawn-mower racing circuit, which culminates on Nov. For example, the John Deere X595 Special Edition, which costs $14,149, is outfitted with a 24-horsepower engine and tops out at 8.5 m.p.h. The mower has a 32-horsepower engine, and its top speed is just 15 miles per hour.īut compared with other high-end competitors, the Xtreme Mowchine is a beast. Haltom said traffic to the company's Web site soared after the "American Chopper" episodes were shown in early May.Ĭompared with the jet-powered prototype, the XT3200-72 seems like a toy. The show's stars incorporated a Dixie Chopper engine into a customized bike and studded the wheels with mower blades for a lethal look. More recently, Dixie Chopper confirmed its macho credentials by appearing in two episodes of "American Chopper," the Discovery Channel program that documents the travails of a father-and-son motorcycle design team. Allen's jokes about wrenches and power drills. That cameo was a marketing coup, he said, in that the company's target audience includes exactly the sort of men who go into hysterics over Mr. "It was the one when he raced Bob Vila," said Jeff Haltom, general manager for Dixie Chopper and son-in-law of Mr. That same flame-spewing mower was featured on a 1993 episode of "Home Improvement," the ABC sitcom starring Tim Allen. The company's founder, Art Evans, was a semiprofessional drag racer before settling into the lawn care business.ĭixie Chopper's slogan is "the world's fastest lawn mowers," a point the company tried to underscore 12 years ago by mounting a 150-horsepower jet engine on a chassis similar to that of today's Xtreme Mowchine. Magic Circle, privately held and based in Coatesville, Ind., has long prided itself on designing the speediest mowers money can buy. "This mower," it continues, "will make you the envy of your competition."īy "competition," the company means the people on the other side of the hedgerow. "Do you want bragging rights?" asks the sales brochure for the machine, a $10,200 behemoth that can clip an entire football field in a little more than nine minutes. That mind-set has been a boon to the Magic Circle Corporation and its top-of-the-line lawnmower: the Dixie Chopper Xtreme Mowchine XT3200-72. PART of the fun of living in suburbia is one-upping the neighbors - not just keeping up with the Joneses, but showing them who's boss, too.
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