Used garden tractors are everywhere. A 'good' one is simply a lawn mower repair waiting to happen

Good used garden tractors (unless you find a Gravely) just don't exist. Most of what you will find for sale is just a repair waiting to happen. Used lawn tractors also fall in to the same category.

In 1911, Benjamin Franklin Gravely of Charleston, West Virginia began the garden tractor revolution.

He mated an Indian motorcycle engine to a conventional push plow and in 1916 began producing a single-wheeled tractor with a variety of lawn care and garden attachments, under the name Gravely Tractors. This Model "D" Gravely Power plow (pictured above), like his original prototype, was a one wheeler, with a two horse power, air-cooled engine. Believe it or not, the crazy-looking thing worked great!

Over the next 20 years, Gravely and his partners improved their designs as well as the Gravely’s reliablity. In 1937, Gravely introduced the Model L (pictured left), a two wheeled tractor with a five horsepower engine.

Today when anyone mentions the name Gravely, the first image to pop in to your head is one of those model Ls. 71 years later, these used garden tractors are still running around, cutting brush, blowing snow and tilling gardens. Amazing!

Maybe it's not the easiest machine of its type to operate, but certainly one of the most robust in construction and simple design to last to this day.

Today Gravely continues making a wide range of two-wheel tractors, concentrating on commercial lawn and garden implements.

Every flea market and garage sale has a few used garden tractors. They range from the "shake itself to death models" that usually are intended to be disposed of  once enough parts have fallen off, to the most sophisticated John Deere garden tractor.

Depending on the model, the cost of JD garden tractors can approach the price of a new small car!