5 Lawn Mower Brands Owned By Toro

Toro was founded in 1914 as a manufacturer of tractor engines, with the name chosen to match the tractor company it was building for, namely the Bull Tractor Company. Within a decade, though, the new company had expanded decisively beyond its original remit; it introduced a golf fairway mower in 1919, renamed itself Toro Manufacturing Company in 1920, and released and its first-ever power mower, the 30-inch Park Special, in 1924.

Fast forward a handful of decades, and Toro is well-known as one of the best lawn mower brands operating, offering high-quality and premium products that, while pricey, users generally consider well worth the money. The brand sells more than just mowers, of course, with a range of professional equipment that carries on the heritage of its initial fairway mower from 1919, including baseball infield groomers, golf greens mowers, and turf sprayers.

As with many companies at the top of their game, Toro hasn't reached these lofty heights by keeping to itself. While it still sells under Toro brand, the company has also acquired a number of subsidiaries over the years. These range from fellow lawn mower brands such as Lawn-Boy and Hayter to more specialized companies such as drilling hardware firm American Augers and hydrovac truck manufacturer Tornado Trucks.

Exmark was founded in 1982, primarily as a manufacturer of pro-grade turf care equipment, specializing in mid-size walk-behind mowers and turf rakes. The company has retained its professional orientation in the decades since then. As of 2026, Exmark specializes in high-end lawn mowers across all popular categories. You have zero-turn, stand-on, and walk-behind mowers, and even an ultra-high-end, $60,000 autonomous mower in the Turf Tracer with XiQ.

Exmark is one of the mower brands that pros turn to regularly and, as you might expect from such a brand, Exmark-branded mowers don't come cheap. The company's most affordable mower, the walk-behind Exmark Commercial 21 X-Series, starts at $1,899, and prices only climb from there. Its zero-turn mowers start at around $3,600, with top-end professional products like the highly-configurable Lazer Z X-Series breaking past the $40,000 mark. With the exception of its lower-end walk-behind mowers, these aren't the lawn-care products homeowners will be considering. That's where Toro and other Toro-owned brands step into the picture, of course, freeing Exmark to focus on what it does best.

Toro purchased Exmark in 1997, signing a letter of intent in early June that year. The acquisition was not without its doubters, with industry observers of the time questioning whether Toro actually needed Exmark and positing that it was primarily a way for Toro to get rid of one of its competitors. Either way, the takeover gave Toro a firm foothold in the market, with the two companies' combined revenues making up roughly 25 percent of both the residential and commercial mower market at the time.

Technically, Ventrac isn't exactly a lawn mower company. Instead, it's a manufacturer of tractors and snow vehicles. However, while it may not make standalone lawn mowers, the company's two tractors — the 4520 Compact Tractor and 45RC Remote Control Tractor — support a selection of attachments, including those designed for maintaining turf. While neither technically qualifies as a riding mower or even a lawn tractor, we'll consider them mowers in spirit, if not necessarily in form.

The 4520 has the larger assortment of mowing attachments between the two Ventrac products, with nine mower types and several other lawn care attachments for buyers to choose from. These include several finish mowers, a post mower, a reel mower, and four types of flail mower. The 45RC shares most of its mowing attachments with the 4520, only missing out on reel, post, and boom mowers. Aside from these turf and lawn care attachments, Ventrac's tractors can also be optioned with attachments for clearing debris or snow, preparing construction sites and, in the case of the 4520, specialty attachments like a sod cutter, loader, and a grass seeder. Ventrac also sells a range of parts for its vehicles and their attachments.

Ventrac is one of Toro's newer acquisitions as of late 2026, having been acquired in 2020 for $167.5 million in cash. The deal was between Toro and privately-held Venture Products, Inc., which manufactured products under the Ventrac name. Ventrac posted net sales of around $100 million the year prior, which goes some way to explaining the price tag.

Lawn-Boy is one of the longest-lived brands under Toro's ownership, with a mower history that stretches back to the early 1930s and a brand heritage that dates back to the formation of Evinrude Motors all the way back in 1904. The first Lawn-Boy mower, built by the Evinrude Company, debuted in 1934 and was, as the company claims, the first one-handed reel mower publicly available in the U.S.

Lawn-Boy released a range of mowers over the next half a century or so, debuting product ranges like the sound-insulated Quietflite products in the late 1950s and expanding into ride-on mowers and snow throwers in the decade after. Lawn-Boy mowers were available in some pretty eye-catching color, with the Quietflite models available in a fetching baby blue and oh-so-'60s brown, for example. Later models sported an unmistakable lime green colorway. 

The late 1980s were quite eventful for Lawn-Boy; first, the company bought Gilson Brothers — manufacturers of tractors and tillers, among others — in 1988 and moved the Lawn-Boy headquarters from Memphis, Tennessee, to Plymouth, Wisconsin. Then, in 1989, Toro bought Lawn-Boy in a cash deal worth $85 million. The first couple of decades after the acquisition saw a range of new products hit the market, but Lawn-Boy seems to be a shadow of its former self as of 2026. While Toro still lists Lawn-Boy as an active subsidiary as of 2025, the Lawn-Boy site only lists three gas-powered walk-behind mowers, with none of the fancy zero-turn or electric mowers that other Toro subsidiaries are offering.

Most of Toro's mower subsidiaries are decidedly North American, but as with so many companies, there's an exception to that geographical focus. In Toro's case, that outlier is Hayter, a U.K.-based company that became part of the Toro corporate family in 2005. It was very much a case of Goliath swallowing and absorbing David. At that point, the greater Toro group boasted annual sales of over $1.6 billion; Hayter, while an established and successful brand in its own right, was a minnow in comparison, with its 2004 revenues just shy of $50 million.

Hayter was established in 1946 by Douglas Hayter and debuted the hand-propelled Hayter Motor Scythe in 1947. The company went from strength to strength, expanding its range of commercial products in the 1950s before earning a prestigious Royal Warrant in 1960 for supplying mowers to the Sandringham Estate, country home of the late Queen Elizabeth II. Hayter has held a Royal Warrant since then, with the most recent award coming in 2025 and guaranteeing Hayter the right to display the U.K.'s Royal Arms until 2030.

The company currently offers a range of home and professional mowers, and also sells a small selection of Toro-branded lawncare power tools to U.K. customers. Hayter focuses on battery- and gas-powered walk-behind mowers, with some self-propelled electric lawn mowers models also available for domestic use.

Unlike some other Toro-owned mower brands, Spartan makes products for work and play. The brand's main stock in trade, however, is all business: Its primary focus is zero-turn mowers, with eight models — five of which are slated for sale starting in spring 2027 — listed on the site at the time of writing.  Of those currently available as of October 2026, the 42- or 54-inch Shield is the most affordable, with a starting price of $4,399. Meanwhile, the $6,799 Defender, which packs a 25-horsepower Spartan motor — no Kawasaki-engined zero-turn mowers here, as that's the preserve of parent brand Toro — is available with a 48-, 54-, or 60-inch deck. It's the brand's top-of-the-line model for now, although that won't be the case for long.

Three variations of a new model, the Victor, are among those being unveiled in spring 2027, and even the cheapest Victor will still set buyers back a cool $13,199. Spartan makes all its riding mowers in the U.S., albeit with some use of global parts. Aside from the mowers, Spartan also makes two UTVs, the FRX and FRX Crew. These are marketed as being perfect for farm work and off-roading fun, with both powered by a 40-horsepower engine that can take the UTVs to a pretty impressive 45 mph.

Spartan's roots date back to 2013, when Robert and Becky Foster founded the Intimidator Group to build UTVs. The company's first Spartan mower debuted in 2015, and it was eventually purchased by Toro in 2022 for $400 million.