wheeledhorseman 573 #1 Posted May 20, 2015 Seeing Neil's post with a Mountfield ad from the sixties reminded me that I've been meaning to post some info on the Amnor factory in Belgium for just over a year now. (Sorry folks!)I managed to track down a guy who worked there from 1980-81 and who provided a snapshot of how things were at that time based on some questions I put to him.I was Manufacturing Engineer at Wheel-Horse Amnor N.V. in 1980 and 1981.It was a fast growing company (revenue increased from 10 Mio to 17 Mio and to 25 Mio Euro in 3 successive years) for the markets Europe, Middle east and North Africa and assembled from small to medium size lawn- and garden tractors.This too fast growing caused then severe cash problems and a series of take-overs by other companies started until finally the company became a Toro company which it still is. The plant mainly existed of 3 different assembly area:1) Pre-paint assembly2) Pretreatment (degreasing, washing, phosphating, washing, passivation and neutralizing, final washing, drying), wed paint booth, cure oven 3) Final assemblyDifferent models were assembled in different batches (very seldom two models were assembled simultaneously). The sheet metal parts were all imported from the main plant in US, (greased but not painted).(we did not have sheet metal presses to produce the parts ourselves)The engines were Briggs and Straton (US brand) or Kholer (European Brand). The majority of the other parts were also imported from US,except when European distributors were specifically asking for European parts, meeting the metric standards, in stead of the inch standards: e.g. bearings, belts, bolts, shafts.This was to my knowledge the only difference in models. So, using parts from another model as substitution to maintain production, was never done, as far as I know. Design engineering was done completely in US and they produced the ‘first-offs’.We at Geel only started assembling when the new model was full mature.(with exception of 1 ‘walk-behind’ model which was specially and solely designed for Europe by 2 engineers in Geel).(this model was not a big success because too expensive).My thanks go to Marc S in Belgium for sharing this with us.While on the subject does anyone in the US have a copy of 'Horse Power' (Wheel Horse Collectors Club Newsletter) from November 2003. There is an item about the Amnor factory in it. I have a pdf copy but unfortunately when it was scanned a critical page was missed out. I'm hoping that somebody may have collected the newsletters and can help by scanning the article in full for me.Andy 7 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jparkes43 329 #2 Posted May 20, 2015 cool information andy! really nice to hear some of the stories etc.james 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
muz123 1,182 #3 Posted May 28, 2015 Cool information! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stevasaurus 22,197 #4 Posted May 28, 2015 Andy...great information. Thanks I would send a PM to Wild Bill (BPjunk) concerning that WHCC News Letter. He is the guy that does the parades at the show, and if he does not have it, he would know who to go to for a copy. Hope that helps. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
meadowfield 2,545 #5 Posted May 28, 2015 Great info Andy! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dennist 139 #6 Posted May 28, 2015 Very nice post, great information.....Thanks 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wh1257 225 #7 Posted July 17, 2015 in a few years we were invited back to the factory in yellow amnor nv we were invited to the big boss of the factory that was the son of the founder of this factory in 1967 and 1968, the factory itself (toro) was now enormously been expanded many bijgebouwt there was still a small piece of history of the lodge which used to be on the wall stood at the front of the factory also you saw the old lines in the factory sooner all wheel horse in rows running behind each other and collapsed were built was also the boss of the factory to tell how in 1970 to 1980 at the plant itself helped to build the wheel horse'sgreetings vincent 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
953 nut 51,028 #8 Posted July 17, 2015 Great information, love glimpses of the past. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites