Warm weather is here, and it’s time to get out the exotic Italian in my garage garden shed for some al fresco tilling. I know Italian products get maligned a lot for being fragile and unreliable, and yes, sometimes that reputation was deserved. But there are exceptions, and the BCS isn’t the only one. After owning this BCS for 26 years of hard work, I can rightfully say this has been the best-built, most reliable piece of power equipment I have ever owned. Nothing has ever broken or needed fixing, and most impressive of all, it ALWAYS starts on the very first pull every time, even after sitting all winter.
Now I know a tiller isn’t going to get a lot of juices flowing here, but bear with me. The BCS is more than a mere tiller; it’s a two-wheel tractor and just one component of a complete system of powered equipment, including the ability to be converted into a 4WD rideable truck-like vehicle. Why do you think I bought one in the first place? I had an acre back then, and reading the catalog got me all excited about its many possibilities.
The heart of the BCS is a rugged all-gear transmission with three forward speeds and one reverse (some models have multiple reverse gears). One of the reasons for the reverse gears is that that the handlebars can be turned 180 degrees, the tiller attachment removed, thus allowing front-mount equipment to be used.
Like this sickle mower. I actually had someone give me a sickle bar for my BCS, and it was perfect for when I owned a two acre empty lot, because I could just wait until the grass had gone to seed (some 3′ – 4′ tall), and the sickle bar just laid it over ever so effortlessly, like getting a buzz hair cut. Trying to mow very tall grass with a conventional mower is a total pain. I passed it onto a small-scale organic farmer after selling that lot.
A conventional mower can also be attached, along with a riding sulky. I won’t show them all here, but there’s a myriad of attachments for the BCS, including chipper, log splitter, plow, brush mower, flail mower, snow thrower and blade, and more. Here’s their website.
There’s even a dumping trailer with seat. But that’s not the ultimate attachment, the one that really got my juices flowing.
Here it is, on page 33 of the owner’s manual: Trailer With Driving Wheels. Brilliant; the trailer’s wheels are connected to the PTO output, turning the BCS into a 4WD truck with an 800kg load capacity. That’s 1763 lbs! Or 563 more lbs than my F100 is rated to carry. These rigs were designed to be an all-purpose primary farm equipment for small farms in Italy and especially in the hilly and Alpine region. BCS is the largest maker of this type of equipment in Europe.
This is a short and not so-great video of a BCS with the powered trailer at work.
But this one, with a very similar Grillo 8 hp diesel, is shown being put through its paces. Top gear gives a 10 mph top speed.
Well, the world of two-wheeled tractors is a huge one, and they play an outsized role in Asia, where rigs like this 12 hp Chinese Sifeng is hauling 5.6 tons of rice.
Two wheeled tractors originated both in Europe and the US in the first few years of the 1910s. This Detroit from 1913 is considered the first in the US, and is quite large. Given the larger farm sizes, four wheel tractors became the default here. But two wheel tractors found use in more specialized tasks.
The Gravely became the dominant compact two-wheeled tractor in the US, thanks to its extremely rugged build. The Gravely is really the analog of the BCS, and I had been quite intrigued by them as a kid in Iowa.
The Gravely was a versatile machine, but the one key difference from the BCS is that it couldn’t be readily “turned around”, which meant its powered attachments were always in front. That’s not quite so ideal for a tiller, and meant that there were no 4WD powered trailers and such.
When the market for riding tractors and mowers really took off in the US, Gravely added a front axle and a riding seat, and turned it into the only rear-engined riding tractor. Quite clever, and it kept the Gravely alive for some decades more. Gravely was owned by Studebaker for many of its years.
In the end, I realized that I didn’t really need a cart with driven wheels, or any of the other attachments. We wanted to garden, in our place back in Los Gatos. So after spending some time perusing the BCS cataloge, I decided I really couldn’t justify their bigger machines and bought this 715 with a 6 hp engine. And I turned this…
Into this, thanks to a couple of loads of well-rotted cow manure hauled from the last local little dairy and my new BCS tiller. Our first vegetable garden was an outsized success. More like a jungle. And we’ve been doing it ever since.
Rather oddly, BCS started replacing its legendary “Acme” engines (gas and diesel) with Kohlers, and later Honda engines for the US market, shortly after I bought ours. I presumed then it was because American dealers just didn’t have much experience with the Acmes, because they had a rep for being extremely tough. But it appears that BCS has now wholly switched over to Honda and other engines, even in Europe. It’s probably was more expedient than building their own.
The little 6hp Acme is beautifully made, all in alloy with nicely detailed castings, back when most American engines were cast in iron. Its carburetor (on the other side) is a gem, and as I said at the opening, this engine always starts on the first pull when cold, which never ceases to amaze me after sitting all winter. When I pulled it out of the shed last Saturday, I called Stephanie to witness the annual ritual: open the gas petcocks, wait 30 seconds, close the choke, give the starter a tug…and sure enough, it did it again. I should have made a video.
We actually don’t till our beds much anymore, and it sat two years recently, and still started right up. And that’s using regular pump gas, with 10% ethanol. I’ve had problems with my other equipment due to the ethanol, but not the BCS.
There are/were several companies making two-wheeled tractors and such in Italy, including…Ferrari. Ok, not the same company as the cars, but if there had been a Ferrari available at my implement dealer back then, I doubt I could have resisted. By the way, BCS bought Ferrari tractors some time back, so now it’s just another brand of theirs.
Like any well-built equipment, the BCS is a joy to run, or just admire. I’ve ended up using it for all sorts of landscape jobs on my rentals, as well as eradicating a half-acre of English Ivy.
And although I’ll have to leave that trailer with driven wheels in the realm of imagination, I’m quite happy to walk behind it and turn compost, amendments and soil into black gold. Green Acres is the place to be…
What a very neat piece of equipment and what does BCS stand for?
I am most familiar with the self propelled walk behind Gravely since my folks had one to now our meadow, but it was a bit overkill. Plus it had mechanical problems and Wasps would build nests in it between runs so we they sold it to a Gravely fan. Our Aaron’s self propelled walk behind mower does a good job of making paths in the meadow. We have a Mantis to till what we do not hand till (though it gave dad a mallet finger) and a large 1970s Rototiller that hardly gets used.
BCS = Bonetti, Castoldi, Speroni
That’s all I could make of this: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCS_(azienda)
Well what a pleasant surprise to see this kind of machinery here ! Standard equipment for vegetable growers and horticulturists. The Italians are indeed very good at this kind of 2 wheelers and (very) small tractors and trucks.
One of my clients, a tree nurserer and vegetable grower, has so many of these things he actually turned one of his barnes into some sort of museum. IIRC his oldest machine is a French motor plough from the late twenties.
As we all know Lamborghini is a tractor manufacturer by origin. Here’s a genuine Lambo mini-tractor with a Mitsubishi diesel engine. (Photo: Lamborghini)
Some companies also offered front-mounted trailers, probably aimed at people with space problems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgrcMmRFww0
According to the uploader, it’s a BCS 622 mower with a CARON trailer, nicknamed “Carolina”.
And here’s a promotional video for the same model and it’s various attachments, with some nice 70s porn music playing in the background.
My Dad had a Howard Bulldog Rotovator originally JAP powered it ate that and 3 Tecumsehs and a couple of Briggs engines before the transmission failed, though after he’d given it away I discovered parts were still available in Aussie.
I don’t think all Italian products should have a bad rep. My Italian Harley was pretty good. A little hard to start but just park on a hill.
This article started me thinking about my tractor that is sitting patiently awaiting some minor work. Better get to it. I had no idea that all those attachments were made for two wheel tractors.
Wow, very interesting, the oddest things on here end up being some of the most fascinating articles! Thanks for sharing, looks like you’ve had this article “in the shed” for a few years…
When’s the story on the ’84(?) Accord Hatchback from Los Gatos coming?
Too bad I have a complete and total brown thumb. Then I could play with some of these neat tools. A lawn mower and a hedge trimmer is about all I’m safe with. And that’s just to mow the weeds.
The sickle mower attachment is interesting… reminds me of the old Jari walk-behinds. Always been curious about those. I’d probably have given one a try by now, if I wasn’t afraid of the sharpening procedure (which I hear is a total PITA).
With 6 acres of lawn to mow and only one machine to do it (a 72″ Jacobsen whose Kubota diesel died at the end of last season), I finally decided to get a backup machine this spring: a 42″ Lesco. It’s a walk-behind with a sulky and hydraulic drive, and I imagine the operation is similar to those shown above.
Of course, the deck doesn’t come off – but I suspect it could still tow a decent load if compelled to do so. After all, it easily hauls 200lbs of weight (me) up and down hills for hours without complaint!
I have no doubt that the reliability of Paul’s machine has something to do with how he has cared for it. My Jake is four years newer, and looks almost as nice (though not nearly as shiny; 3500 hours of use will do that). The Lesco, on the other hand, is a full decade newer and looks thoroughly broken in by comparison… having been in a commercial lawn service fleet, its battle scars are many. Both needed a fair amount of work to achieve “one pull” status.
When I first got to Korea circa 1993, there lots of tractors like this one around, except quite a bit bigger. They used a mega-tough air-cooled, diesel engine, which I believe was imported from Japan, and hand-cranked to start. They made a characteristic “put-put-chuff-chuff” that any Korea expat would remember vividly.
There were too many attachments to list here but my most endearing memory of these tractors was Saturday morning market days. The entire family would be riding on the wagon smilin’ and having a fine time, totally whacked on makkoli rice wine, smoking their traditional long pipes and just havin’ a fine old time. These tractors were usually horridly maintained and thus shuddered,belched fire and black smoke and often grinding to a halt. I can recall many times piss-drunk adjoshi’s getting off the wagon, going up to the motor, fiddling with things, yelling, kicking and cursing and then swinging the starting handle. The darned things always fired, too!
These simple Korean farm folk were some of the nicest people I have ever had the pleasure to meet, by the way. Genuinely kind to all visitors. So many times I was plied with food and drink by Koreans who were sincerely worried I was not eating well because I was not with my mom nor married! Many times I staggered away!
That’s what I like here. Through an Italian two-wheel tractor on an American website a Dutchman gets to know something about daily life in Korea by a comment from a Canadian.
I think we live in a pretty cool time.
I intend to have the quotation of this machine with the cost of transport to Mozambique in the province of Zambezia in the city of Quelimane.
Oh I like those BCS machines. I’ve got an old simplicity that I replaced the old B&S motor for a new Honda. Changed the nature of the beast completely. Starts so easily and is smoother and quieter.
I have a plough, 2 sets of cultivators, and a sickle bar mower for the front. Very crude compared to the BCS but it gets the job done.
Alistair
Here’s the best example for a use for a similar machine. I think this was from CNN.com a few months ago, from the Philippines.
Necessity truly is the mother of invention!
They are not that common in the Philippines. Most farming duties are still performed by water buffalo, believe it or not, they are so poor.
Never knew about these, but how cool. Not a gardener, myself, but that doesn’t stop me from liking the power equipment.
I enjoyed this article. No offense to Paul, but I think it’s a great example of how offering a large lineup of flashy/intriguing models can get customers in the door and sell more basic examples. Sounds like a great machine, I’ve long lusted after rear tine tillers but only ever used front-tine models, which really beat you up. They do a good job though, and are MUCH cheaper to buy and take up a lot less room in the shed! Tops on my list would be a David Bradley with a tiller attachment.
I’m a big fan of lawn and garden equipment, and have a small collection already. Unlike cars, they are relatively cheap to buy and service, take little space to store, and require no registration or insurance 🙂
Small AWD tractors are also used by fruit growers. Like this New Holland (formerly known as Ford) towing a load of fruit. This is what we call, and I translate it literally, a pick-train. A big tractor is useless on the narrow paths between the rows of trees. (Photo: Dewaelheyns)
I completely agree with what you say about the BCS being the best built machine. I’ve owned numerous BCS machines and I can’t find a fault anywhere, they’re great.
Pretty cool !
It looks based upon the Planet Junior we had in the 1960’s , I remember the wagon attachment best of all , filled up with Farm kids on the weekend….
-Nate
Sorry to be late to the post, but that is me on the Gravely. Model LI with the sulky and dual wheel option.
I just picked up a 725 today. What a beast! Came with a tiller attachment. $300 and a small bit of bartering. I think I got a GREAT deal. It’s in very nice condition. Looks like it was painted last year!
Don’t know where you are from, but that was a steal!! The transmission/crankcase alone is worth 4x that much. I have a 40 year old 8hp715 with 16″ tiller, Original tines and see no wear? I have a 45 year old 715 with a re-engined 6hp A220 with a 20″ tiller and wheel weights. I also have a 26 year old SEP 2 2 with a 10hp, 22″ tiller, 47″ sickle mower and a 24″ snow thrower. These Italian machines are in fantastic condition. Amazing thing – you can still get parts for them. New engine replacements too. Earth Tools of Kentucky (Largest BCS dealer in the USA) is my source for all parts, including many ACME engine parts.
Having issue stating my bcs 715 has Italian acme motor had a place look at it said it was some sort of pressure relief valve needed replaced and cant get parts for this unit any longer..has wrap arou3 pull string and its dam near impossible to pull it to crank motor any advice would be appreciated
Try EarthTools in Owenton KY for parts and serfvice