What’s In Your Garage? ‘The Beast’

Shopper | News / Events | July 3, 2014

Looking back at the ‘Mighty Yazoo’

By Joe Williams, The Coweta Shopper Publisher

Here’s a great example of a little known, but not forgotten, commercial mower.  It’s the Yazoo YR 60 Master Mower, manufactured almost 35 years ago.

“The Beast”, as many call it, has 3 main wheels, a 3 blade – 5 foot wide cut, an 18 HP twin cylinder Kohler Magnum engine, and weighs in at well over a thousand pounds.  (Earlier models had a 2 cylinder Wisconsin)  This thing is built like a tank!  It can go through the woods and cut down just about anything in it’s path, or give your lawn a very smooth and level cut.

This example, used here in Coweta County, is a “last generation” of the design produced by Yazoo since 1945.  It’s simply and heavily built to last a lifetime, as some of the really old ones are still in use after 40 or 50 years.  The unique gearbox allows instant forward to reverse and “near zero turn” steering, long before the capability of hydrostatic transmissions.  And the front-mount mower is great at getting under low overhangs, and you can see exactly where it’s mowing.

But this “beast” is made for really large yards and is a handful to operate.  One is constantly articulating the throttle, direction, clutch, and steering wheel by hand – the lonely foot is assigned only to the brake peddle.  And these things can be a little dangerous since there are little or no safety features which are built into modern machines.  (Remember, they were designed and manufactured back when lawyers had more murder trials than  product liability cases!)

Turning the beast at full speed will send the back end (and you) spinning around not unlike a scary ride at the local fair!  Even if you can stay on, you will certainly be shaken to the quick.  The young, sick or elderly (over 90) should not operate these mowers – all others should lie down for 30 minutes after mowing.

So if you want to go on an adventure every time you mow a large area, consider finding one of these old Yazoos.  They can be found on the  internet for $600 to about $2,000.  Parts are now getting hard to find and they require a little     “tinkering”.  For additional information, check out the site at musschoot.com/yazoo-tractors.

By the way, I’m Shopper publisher and Yazoo owner, Joe Williams, and I approve this message.