G'day folks,
The thing about the Kirby-Lauson engines, is that once they started to be made locally, they would have had a significant price advantage over the smaller Briggs models. This was due to the substantial import tariffs of the time.
At this distance in time, it doesn't look to be possible to pin down a definite start date for Oz manufacturing for J N Kirby's small engine operation. Certainly it was the early 1960s, but it's also possible that Kirby's might have started local assembly from imported parts kits a little earlier. The 1960-61 mower ads only seem to refer to 'Lauson'.
BTW, 'Delrin' is just DuPont's trademarked name for one of the acetal resins they supply to plastic product manufacturers in pellet form - it's not a brand of wheel.
