Dixie Chopper Vice President and General Manager Chris Vernon mans the company’s booth last week at GIE+EXPO.For Dixie Chopper, the 2015 GIE+EXPO had a different feel than the previous year’s, when the company was still managing through its purchase by Jacobsen.
The acquisition appears to have gone smoothly and Dixie Chopper was at full throttle for this year’s show – a record-breaking event last week at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville.
Selling hard only a few booths down from Jacobsen, where he formerly served as vice president of strategy and product management, Dixie Chopper’s general manager, Chris Vernon, said the 2015 show helps cap off a solid year for the manufacturer.
“The booth traffic and customer engagement exceeded our expectations,” Vernon said, “and we cannot wait to see what 2016 will hold for Dixie Chopper.”
People stopping by the company’s indoor and outdoor GIE+Expo exhibits this year learned about several updates and cosmetic enhancements for 2016 to Dixie Chopper’s existing ZTR, walk-behind and stand-on models.
Dixie Chopper’s Silver Eagle zero-turn-radius mower, part of its commercial product lineup, is available with a new 72-inch deck in addition to the 50- and 60-inch models.Photo: Dixie Chopper
Among the updates are new models of the Silver Eagle ZTR mower, all of which come with either Kohler EFI or Kawasaki FX engines of 25 or 27 horsepower.
The biggest change is the availability of Dixie Chopper’s 72-inch “Elite X” deck on the Silver Eagle. The company says the mower can cut up to 6.4 acres an hour.
Landscapers also spent some time looking over the two big ZTRs Dixie Chopper classifies as “industrial” machines: the Classic and XCaliber models, both of which come in 35- and 36-horsepower models. The XCaliber alone offers a 74-inch deck option.
Vernon said Dixie Chopper has “seen significant increases in sales, segment share, brand awareness and dealer confidence” in the past year, also hiring additional staff during the period.
