In 1942, Luigi Castoldi was working out of a small workshop in Abbiategrasso, a town on the outskirts of Milan, Italy. Castoldi, a brilliant engineer, developed a self-propelled sickle bar mower that helped revolutionize agriculture by increasing productivity and dramatically reducing the physical effort needed to harvest hay and other forage crops. His self-propelled mowing machine, which he dubbed Model 243, was among the first mowing machines in the world to be equipped with an internal combustion engine with low power.
BCS products came to America in the early 1970’s at a time when Americans were re-discovering the joys of vegetable gardening and pursuing self-sufficiency. The walk-behind tractor with tiller attachment was an instant success due to its superiority to the rear-tine tillers produced by US manufacturers of homeowner-quality lawn and garden equipment.
In addition to gardening, rural property owners soon found that the front-mount cutter bar attachment was ideal for mowing pond banks, under fences, around semi-dwarf fruit trees, etc. Commercial farmers, nurseries, public and private institutions then began using BCS tractors and attachments for all those applications for which four-wheel tractors are poorly suited – mowing steep roadside banks, sweeping snow from pedestrian walkways, intensive cultivation and so on.