Homelite 540 vs. Jonsered 930 vs. Husqvarna 285

[Spike60]

No worries about getting back on topic now. What was the title of this thread? 

There were a lot of 2nd teir brand stories similar to the Shindaiwa tale. A model or 2 in the line up that were as good, or better, than what the big two were selling. Olympic 970 was as good as any other 70cc saw on the market. Thing is, there was little else in the catalog anyone remembers. The 999 is sought by the 100cc fans, but saws like that were far too large for 98% of the saw market. Rarely even sold a 3120 Husky.

I could repeat the above paragraph for Sachs Dolmar, with no changes other than plugging in 120SI and 166 as the saw models. 115si was a great 3 cube saw, on par with a 346NE, but again, the rest of the catalog is largely forgotten.

I have a different take on the Elux efforts on their other brands. They made significant investments to boost those brands offerings. The primary intention was to keep them alive and relevant. 

Jonsered was in dire need of fresh product. Before getting rebranded Husky product, most of it came from Partner. 490, 590, 2054, 2055, 2077, 2083. The Partner brand itself was canceled. 

The most fascinating part of this story was what they did with Poulan Pro. They folded what was left of both Partner, and Pioneer into the Poulan line up. Painted them all Partner yellow and called it all Poulan Pro. That was a heck of a collection of saws all in one catalog. Ultimately failed, but they get an A for trying. 

Jonsereds final demise is both unique and truly sad. Some clown on the way up the corporate ladder decided to pull the orange saws out of the box stores and replace them with Jonsered product; tractors and all. For a reason that is still a mystery, he also pulled the rug out from under long time Jonsered distributor Tilton equipment and canceled them. I'm told Dan Tilton was in tears when he left the meeting. Idea was a flop, and the moron was moved to the appliance side of the company. But the damage was done. For a while Jonsered product was available through the Red Max distributors. I stayed with it for a while. But when they began branding the saws  Red Max, I was done. 

I could type for hours on this stuff, but those days are long gone. All that's left is for some of us to preserve what we can of these different brand saws and keep them going. Similar to how some guys embrace the Macs and Homelites for the home team, my 970, 120si and Solo 651pro, like your Shindaiwas, are examples of other brands of saws that are worth preserving. And they're still cutting wood! 

One last item: Olympyk 962 is another worthy saw, and is amazingly still available from Efco!

[CJ154SG]

What? There's a topic??  (Apologies to Walt for hijacking. I'll stop now )

Great info, Bob. And thanks for enlightening me further on a bit of the Elux behind the scenes (that was a never-ending saga if there was one). As usual, when lacking facts, I oversimplified things .

Totally hear you on Olympyk (aka Oleo-Mac, Efco, etc) and Dolmar, too.

My dad loves his Sachs Dolmar 120 Super (precursor to the 120si). Will outpull any stock 266 you put up against it. Starts beautifully due to the true primer system. Parts, as usual, are the problem, so it doesn't get run as much as some of the others, but it never fails to impress.

Your remarks about Poulan Pro reminded me of a couple of things:

Possibly Elux' biggest misstep in their many acquisitions in the Great Consolidation was Pioneer, which trailed almost all of the others in technology by the time they were acquired, having been in financial trouble from the mid-'70s on, when OMC unloaded them.

Reading Elux' annual financial reports from the early-to-mid-'80s (they are available in PDF online from the 1950s to now), one can tell that Pioneer was a boat anchor, consistently underperforming expectations. Thus, Elux first paired them in North America with Partner to try and boost their fortunes (just as you pointed out; now this makes way more sense to me). I believe (could be totally wrong) that this birthed the change in color from the brighter Partner yellow to the deeper Pioneer/Partner yellow. My 1985 Pioneer/Partner 5000+ sports this newer color scheme.

Then, with Pioneer/Partner still failing to meet expectations, Elux pulled the plug on any Partner branding of any sort in North America and rolled the remnants of Pioneer/Partner into Poulan, with the remaining Pioneer models and a few Partners all re-badged as Poulan Pros, retaining that same deeper yellow color.

So, I would be better off saying that while Elux did not deliberately set out to kill off all of the brands they absorbed, circumstances and decisions they made sometimes had the same end result.

Now, back to Walt's regularly scheduled program