Several acquisitions broadened the Outboard product line during the 1950s. The first, in 1952, was RPM Manufacturing Company of Missouri, whose specialty was a rotary power mower that Outboard planned to sell under its familiar Lawn-Boy tradename. Featuring a detachable engine useful as an outboard, the mower was already a best-selling unbranded item in both the Sears and the Spiegel catalogs. Outboard coped with the huge volume of existing orders by completing entire units in one factory, rather than using the more time-consuming method of piecemeal assembly in several locations.