Grillo Walk-Behind Tractors

Description

​Founded by the Pinza family in 1953 (and actually originally branded “Pinza”) the Grillo company started building walk-behind tillage equipment in 1953, and was one of the first companies to offer interchangeable implements on a walking tractor in Italy (original machines accepted a plow, tiller, sprayer and trailer).   “Grillo” means “Cricket” in Italian (hence the “bug” in the Grillo logo), and asked why he chose that name for his company, Old Mr. Pinza said: “For an insect, they do not harm the garden, and they make a pleasant sound.”   Grillo walk-behind tractors have been one of BCS’s main competitors for decades, and actually the two companies collaborated from the 1960’s up through the early 1980’s, initially helping each other develop new implements and eventually even selling some of each other’s tractors (the old BCS models 705 and 755 were Grillo-manufactured and the old Grillo 7M had a BCS 725 transmission). BCS’s original machines were walk-behind sickle bar mowers ONLY and it wasn’t until BCS and Grillo started working together in the late 1960’s that BCS started to offer tillers (Grillo’s design) and Grillo to offer sickle bars (BCS’s design).  Today, the areas of expertise are still apparent: Grillo has the edge on a better tiller implement, and BCS makes a nicer sickle (cutter) bar mower implement. Grillo’s current model selection offers a good complement to the BCS line we have carried for years, and several implements are even interchangeable between Grillo and BCS using an inexpensive adapter.  Grillo’s manufacturing plant is located in Cesena, in Northeastern Italy, and is still run by the Pinza Family.   Grillo tractors will essentially accept the same selection of implement types as our BCS tractors. The advantages Grillo tractors offer: excellent quality at extremely competitive pricing; more user-service-friendly design for folks who want to maintain their own machine. Disadvantages are: Not a widely-established dealer service network in the U.S.A. (yet… but they are growing!) and since Grillo is newer to the U.S. market, the equipment is not as “Americanized” as the BCS equipment, (i.e. multilingual owners manuals, etc).