The Maseratis of the backyard

For John D'Orlando, 3.5 horsepower just doesn't cut it anymore. When his customers pick their way along the line of walk-behind lawn mowers outside the TrueValue hardware in North Beverly, Mass., Mr. D'Orlando encourages them to think bigger - 5.5 horses, at least.

"People come in wondering about their blades," he says of those who report problems in cutting with their older machines. A quick sharpening helps. But as more local homeowners let grass grow higher, says D'Orlando - to keep it lush during dry spells or because they're too time-taxed to keep up - the job also calls for sending more torque to that whirring steel.

Big engines hold up best under heavy use, he says.

Enginemakers are happy to deliver. Where 3.5-h.p. push mowers represented the standard 10 years ago, today it's not uncommon to find slope-nosed 7.5-h.p. models looking poised for takeoff at stores.

"There's definitely a horsepower war going on," says Peter Sawchuk, lawn-and-garden expert at Consumer Reports magazine in Yonkers, N.Y. "More horsepower is considered better. [But] there are points in which more horsepower doesn't do much for you," he adds. "And we're probably well past that point."

Others say the boost simply affords buyers more choice. US consumers snap up some 6 million powered walk-behinds each year, according to the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI). And they increasingly demand mowers that do more.

Some of today's models have a mulching function. Many use engine power to drive the rear wheels, a power assist that many baby boomers appreciate.

"If you just want to make tall grass short you can get a 3.5 or 4 [h.p.] and still get the job done," says George Thompson, vice president for communications at the Wauwatosa, Wis., firm Briggs & Stratton, a major US manufacturer of mower engines.

"A Kia will get you there, as will a Maserati," he says, comparing the cheap-to-exorbitant spectrum of cars to lawn mowers. "Obviously the Maserati has a lot more features on it. And a lot more horsepower."

Mr. Sawchuk can recall when basic, unmodified ride-on mowers - which sell at a rate of about 2 million a year, according the OPEI - came with 12-h.p.

engines. Now, he says, they run to 20 or 22.

Mr. Thompson could not say what horsepower rating currently sells best for Briggs & Stratton, but he says the average level has risen steadily through the years.

Sawchuk acknowledges the widening array of features that gulp more power. But he also suspects that a marketing mind-set lurks in the tall grass: If 5 h.p. is good, 7 is better.

"I used to work for Troy-Bilt and make rototillers," he recalls, "and we used to have this big argument." Technicians would tinker with 5- and 6 h.p. tillers, squeezing out performance.

"The sellers wanted 8. They were trying to sell horsepower," Sawchuk says, even though the pulley-and-belt drive system wouldn't really transfer more than 4 to the blades, and anything more was "for show only." (In most push mowers, he allows, the engine drives the blade directly, so there is no such power loss.)

With a 500-h.p. Dodge pickup truck now on the automotive market - it uses the V-10 power plant made for the Viper sports car - it's not hard to believe that "show appeal" continues to matter.

"Throughout human evolution there's always been a move toward more complexity in tools," says Meredith Small, a professor of anthropology at Cornell University.

She suggests that at some level men might think they can attract women with brawny lawn gear, laughing at the notion before recalling that she surrendered her own nonmotorized reel mower when a man entered her life.

"Now I own half of a lawn mower, and a snowblower, and a leafblower, and there must be more," she says. "And I keep thinking, 'What am I doing with all of these tools?' "

Much more sobering: the debate over mowers' environmental impact. Watch groups point to the significant amount of pollutants - from nitrous oxide to carbon monoxide to volatile organic compounds - still being unleashed by small engines, government-regulated only since about the mid-1990s.

The amount of pollutants from small engines continued to rise into the late 1990s, according to EPA statistics.

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