Toro should have never bought Lawn-Boy. Instead of promoting, energizing, and utilizing Lawn-Boy's history they just dragged the brand down into their corporate quagmire. Publicly traded companies like Toro lose sight of what makes something like Lawn-Boy work. They try their goofy little corporate tricks like making green Toros and calling them Lawn-Boys to try to make the stock prices go up. The fact is that nobody at Toro, including the CEO cared whatsoever that Lawn-Boy slowly sank into oblivion. If Ford bought GM do you think they would really care passionately about GM's demise other than how it affected the stock? No. In fact they would snicker at the thought. That's exactly what happened at Toro.Thanks to the corporate morons at Toro we are left with an all but dead carcass. I wish someone (non-public company) would buy Lawn-Boy that was an enthusiast, capitalize on the history, infuse it with money, innovation, and creative American ideas. Check out the old Lawn-Boy ad below. That's how it should be today.

Here is a link that might be useful: Old Lawn-Boy ad

The Lawnboy brand will go on for as long as it generates sales. The brand was originally tied to push mowers, but was eventually used by Outboard Marine to re-name the existing Rotary line of mowers in the 1950's. With their offset wheels, bright green paint and fiddly two stroke motor Lawnboy's were a quirky mower that obtained a solid if not large following. Concerns over pollution doomed the cheap compact two stroke motor and it was a business decision to switch to using a 4 stroke engine and re-orient the lineup of mowers. The Lawnboy brand would have failed if they had continued to peddle quirkiness. There is simply no place for a motor that pollutes as much as a two stroke. The Lawnboy brand name is still recognized in the marketplace and I see nothing wrong with using that name to sell a budget line of mowers.

yea, my guess is that if Toro did not pick it up it would be gone..which I am guessing many of you would have preferred...but so long as the name is alive there is always a chance it could be sold or re-energized with some sort of new or innovative technolgy some day...I am not so sure those lovable 2 cycle stink bombs are coming back though...

Persoannly Toro should not have demeaned its name by selling lesser qaulity units at HD...should have left that to the LawnBoy name and either stopped selling Toro at HD or only sold the better machines....pi$$ing of private dealers to no end as usual...

Lawnboy mowers were in direct competition with Toro mowers for many years. When the previous owner of the Lawnboy brand decided to sell it to Toro in 1989 it remained a successful competitor for several years under the Toro unbrella. It was able to compete with similarly priced Toro mowers because it retained the 2 stroke motor which made it a unique product. The death of the two stroke motor meant that the Lawnboy became little more than a high-priced green painted re-badged Toro that had little chance of competing with high-priced Toro branded mowers. Toro had no choice but to re-orient the Lawnboy name to products that had a chance of being successful.

The private Lawnboy dealers should have seen the end coming for Lawnboy mowers as they knew them.

I agree with a lot of what's been said. LB's claims to fame were the simplicity of a 2 cycle engine and durability. The 2 cycle engine got stung by the environmental movement, and durability fell victim to the demand for disposable mowers (the average life-span of a consumer mower is 7 years and 120 hours of use, or less if the owner doesn't do oil, filter, and spark plug changes, or if the owner isn't inclined to replace a broken nut or bolt now and then.). People were not willing to pay a premium price for the durability and weight reduction afforded by aluminum decks (hence the introduction of the silver and gold series mowers with steel decks at Home Depot and other discount stores). And the staggered wheels were apparently a turn-off to many users, especially since so many people wanted to "recycle" clippings rather than collect them in the first place. Yes, commercial users loved LB (and didn't care about having to mix oil and gas because because their blowers and string trimmers also used the same fuel), but it's rare to see a commercial outfit using 21" mowers these days -- landscapers are using 32" or larger walk-behind mowers, even for neighborhood yards, and then using string trimmers to do the areas where the walk-behind can't reach. All of which adds up to a diminishing market share for LB mowers as most of us knew them. I don't blame Toro for what they've done with LB; they're probably wishing they hadn't bought LB in the first place, but presumably they're making lemonade with what's now basically a lemon of a devalued and dying brand.

chesapeakebeach, The aluminum deck issue was not one of weight reduction. Steels deck mowers are lighter. Cost of aluminum decks was an issue for sure. Staggered wheel decks were and are as good at mulching as most others. I think the demise of Lawn-Boy was Lawn-Boy's bad transition to the big box stores and ....as you said the market changed and people were interested in cheaper brands that they perceived as almost as good as name brand. Lawn-Mower dealers are just horrible. They don't get the product out there in front of customers. That's why Sears as so good at selling mowers all these years. Snapper is another brand that has been sold and cheapened and will probably go away someday.

...still, if toro wanted to have a high end and low end, I do not think the should have put the lower end Toro models in with the Lawn Boys...use the lawn boy for the lowe end. ala Lexus and Toyota.

Looks like for 2013 Lawn-boy is down to 3 models. I would think the end is near.

The 4 stroke off-set deck mowers were good - but I guess the cost and lack of sales meant they had to go with something they could produce cheaper, and sell in big box stores.

The way I see it, emissions requirements killed off the 2-cycle mower, and without the 2-cycle, there is no point to a Lawn-Boy. Even without the EPA, the 2-cycle mower was steadily losing market share. Most people are not interested in mixing fuel for a mower several times a season, while they don't mind mixing it for a trimmer that doesn't even use a gallon all season. Then there's the old bugaboo of lending the mower to somebody and they fuel it with straight gas and seize it up.
I can't see a continuation of the Lawn-Boy brand for much longer, but as long as they're selling the 20" green mowers, why not keep making them?
I thought the 'Insight' Series like the OP's 10684 was a great mower, and the 6.5 HP Tecumseh 195 is a work horse. I've had my 10684 since 2004 and I bought a 22271 in 2007, one of the few made. Fortunately this great mower is available in red, the Toro 22156. Here are my two, picture taken when I got the commercial. They're both dirty right now but I'm sure I could clean them up to look this good again. The 'Lawn-Boy' on the front of the 22156 is not a decal - it's cast into the deck and ground off after painting - pretty neat.

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Along with my new Honda HRX217HZA and a 2003 Toro SR 20033, I have a 1976 Lawn-Boy 5274 with the D601 2-stroke engine. I'm actually sending off the engine soon for a complete rebuild and restoration to a fellow in NC. The Lawn-Boy does a decent job of mulching - not up to the spec of the Honda or Toro - but still good nevertheless. What I always liked about the Lawn-Boy are: the light weight of the mower, and the offset front wheel that doesn't leave any residual grass blades standing on the right side, aka rooster tails, which the conventional symmetrical wheel design has a slight tendency to do. Properly tuned, a Lawn-Boy 2-stroke puts out less pollution than you'd think, but still certainly more than either the old Brigss flat head, or the newer engine designs, such as OHV, or the OHC Honda.

All of Lawn-Boy's current offerings, can also be purchased at a Toro dealer - except they're red in color! Re. the one comment about going to a dealer to buy a mower.... I've always purchased my mowers from a dealer/mower shop, but when I purchased the 2013 Honda HRX217 two weeks ago, I had to "request" the 2013 model, as the mowers they had on the display floor were 2012 models. There are a number of design differences, and improvements, especially on the 2013 model year HRX217 over the 2012. Of course, they were going to sell me either at the same price, so you really have to do your research, otherwise you might not like what you discover when you get home! I got the feeling the shop owner felt a bit put out in having to unbox and setup the 2013 model year HRX for me. One difference between the 2012 and 2013 models is the 2013 has a self-charging battery for the electric start, whereas the 2012 model uses the traditional wall-wart for charging.