Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe NEW YORK, May 4 (UPI) -- Aging baby boomers have taken to the notion of "bigger is better" when it comes to gas lawn mowers, especially if the extra horsepower helps push the mower. Ten years ago, 3.5 horsepower push-mowers were the standard, but since the advent of sport utility vehicles, the public is demanding and getting mowers with double that power, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Advertisement U.S. consumers buy some 6 million gas walking mowers each year, according to the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, and they increasingly demand mowers that do more, such as mulching and rear-wheel power-assist. Riding mowers, too, used to come with 12 hp engines, but now run to 20 or 22, said George Thompson, a vice president at the Wauwatosa, Wis.-based Briggs & Stratton, a major U.S. manufacturer of mower engines. "There's definitely a horsepower war going on," said Peter Sawchuk, lawn-and-garden expert at Consumer Reports magazine in Yonkers, N.Y. "There are points in which more horsepower doesn't do much for you, and we're probably well past that point."
