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Vintage Hoover Vacuum Cleaners

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Dyson Tech:
I'll preface this topic by saying that as a company, we are generally pretty anti-Hoover. The 1993 "Flights to Florida" scandal that lost Hoover their Royal Warrant not only cost us money, but also irreparably damaged the brand in the UK (that Dyson immediately took advantage of to become the market leader). We do not stock Hoover products partly because of this, and partly because of very poor product quality in the modern machines. 

However, vintage Hoover machines are another matter entirely. Back when Hoover still had a good name and a Royal Warrant, the brand reached such ubiquity that "Hoovering" became a verb and "Hoover" a noun; terms still used by many in the UK today.

The way that the designs change to reflect the period in which they were sold fascinates me, as does the way that no matter how vintage the Hoover might be, it is highly likely that it is still in good working condition. Many machines are are still around today and are given regular workouts performing everyday cleaning tasks, and the do so with the efficiency they had when they were built.

At the start of the 1930s, Hoover had been selling their vacuum cleaners in the UK for over a decade, but their spectacular factory in London had not yet been opened, and machines were still being shipped over from their Canadian plant. The machines themselves looked little different to examples dating from the time of the Great War, but many detail improvements in design had been carried out, most notably the introduction of the beater bar in 1927, which made the Hoover Cleaner probably the most efficient upright cleaner on the market for several decades. It Beats as it Sweeps as it Cleans was the slogan for many years, and as this decade progressed, Hoover became more conscious of several factors that manufacturers could use to help spur on sales.



The first of the British-built Hoover cleaners to emerge from the new plant at Perivale was the Model 750 of 1932, which represents a top-of-the-range model from the turn of the 1930s, with a very functional design and limited ornamentation, while the budget Model 450 of a couple of years later has one significant change - the addition of a dirt finder lamp, to illuminate dark corners, and also apparently to facilitate vacuuming in the dark, as many machines were run from light sockets during this period - many homes were wired for electric light only, and lacked plug sockets. The Model 825 from 1935 features many detail changes in design from the 750, and uses several styling cues from the automotive industry, while the Junior 375 represents an increasingly diverse approach to different international markets. It was a small machine more suited to European homes, and was never sold on Hoover's home market of the USA. The Model 262 of 1939 represents the increasing importance of the role of the industrial designer - in Hoover's case Henry Dreyfuss - and its teardrop-like form contrasts wildly with the rudimentary styling of its forebearers. This design was followed in 1940 by a design not launched in the UK until 1949, as the Model 612, a far more substantial looking machine.



In 1950, the Junior 375 was replaced by the Junior 119. The styling of this was still a little archaic compared with the full-size Hoover, but in 1955 it was replaced by the Junior 1224 - the same basic machine, with its appearance transformed by the application of much brighter colours, reflecting the increasing gaiety in the design of post-war products. This can also be seen in the Deluxe 652 of 1959, later known as the Hoover Senior. The dull browns and navy blues of the early 1950s were discarded in favour of pastel pink plastics and aluminium trim, the most implicit use of the imagery of the American car yet seen. The previous year, the Junior 1334 had been launched, and it, from certain angles, resembled nothing less than the Volkswagen Beetle (Probably the first proper "world car") from many angles.



Both of these models were updated every few years, usually by changing the colour of the machine and effecting detail changes, and both the 652 and 1334 type of machine were reskinned to make them look more modern, but without changing the mechanics of the machine - the Junior 1346 of 1967 and its attendant derivatives are an example of this. But throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the product range was increasingly widened. Many Non-vacuum cleaner Hoover appliances were launched, as were different designs of Hoover cleaner. One of the best-known is the Hoover Constellation, a machine that owed more to Sci-Fi fantasy in design terms than any other vacuum cleaner at the time. It was a huge success, far more so than the Hooverette 2944B of 1961, a European-style stick vacuum cleaner of similarly futuristic design.



This machine was meant to rival machines made by firms like AEG and Miele, just as the Hoover Cylinder range increasingly sought to take sales from Electrolux, with the ultimate version being the Hoover Conquest 507 from 1970, with its automatic flex rewind, bag full indicator and turbo brush. But not all the new Hoover vacuum cleaners aped the products of other manufacturers. In 1963 Hoover launched the Dial-A-Matic in the USA, which was sold in the UK as the Hoover Convertible. This machine was the predecessor of the modern upright vacuum cleaner, with a hard bag chamber, clean fan action and equal efficiency as both an upright and suction cleaner.



This model didn't sell well in the UK, but it did inspire another Europe-only model, the Hoover Starlight U2002 of 1975, which later morphed into the more basic Junior Deluxe by 1977. By this time, a whole new round of Hoover vacuums were about to appear, but let's get into more detail.............

Dyson Tech:
Hoover Model 750

The Hoover 750 is one of the older vintage Hoovers, and represents the end of the period where the design of electrical domestic equipment started to move away from the overtly industrial look that characterized the early years of product design.



The 750 was similar in appearance to far earlier machines, but evidence of making the machine more aesthetically pleasing to the consumer were emerging by 1932, the year this model was introduced. The black enamel paint and dull aluminium of the early machines were replaced by chrome, flashes of orange paint and highly polished aluminium took the design of the cleaner to resemble something more modern and technologically state of the art. But these 'improvements' were merely cosmetic. Between 1927, when the model 700 was introduced (the first cleaner to use beater bars and the earliest to be sold under the famous slogan "It Beats as it Sweeps as it Cleans") and the outbreak of World War Two, there were a dizzying array of slightly different 'new' models where the only changes made to the design were slight; the 725, 750, 800, 825, 850 and 875. This represented an early attempt at stimulating the consumer market by making machine obsolete in design very quickly, in the hope that their owners would quickly replace them with the latest model. This was especially important following the Wall Street crash and the financially depressed period of the 1930s.



That the 750 is an early model is borne out by the fact that it was not manufactured in London's great cathedral to housework, the Hoover factory in Perivale, west London. This was not opened until 1935, and thus the 750 predates it by three years. The triangular badge on the nozzle proclaims that the machine is 'An Empire Product' - it was built at Hoover's Canadian plant in Hamilton, Ontario, and shipped over the the UK.

Make no mistake, when this machine was built, it was very much a luxury item, unlike its modern equivalents. Just before manufacture of these products ceased following the outbreak of World War Two, the model 875 (the last of this style of model) sold at £19.19s.0d (£19.95 in new money) - at this time, a new car could be bought for £100. But these machines were not built down to the lowest price possible. The high quality of the appliance is evident in the way that despite its 73 years, this machine is in full working order, and performs as well as the other, far more modern machines in the collection.



One of the most dramatic aspects of this cleaner is the expansion of the dust bag whilst in operation. Designed before disposable paper bags became commonplace, it was intended that these early models had their fabric bags emptied after each use. To prevent clogging the fabric and reducing suction, the dust bag was designed to expand considerably while in operation, and as can be seen, it end up almost Zeppelin-like in appearance.

The greatest testament to this machine, however, must be its condition. Although there is admittedly evidence that the cleaner went through some reconditioning in the early 1960s, this machine has proved to be in perfect working order, and after a good clean and polish, has proved itself to be perfectly capable of performing the duties it was designed for, a whole 80-odd years after it left the factory across the Atlantic.

Dyson Tech:
Hoover Model 450

This Hoover dates, I believe, to about 1934, and would have been one of the first models to be built at the Perivale factory in west London.



The 450 was slightly more basic than the 750 and its derivatives, with a matt black motor cowl and smaller brushroll, but it was also one of the first models to be fitted with the 'dirtsearcher' headlight, which was neatly enclosed under a comet-like motif.

Dyson Tech:
Hoover Model 825

The Model 825 was one of the final unstreamlined large Hoover uprights to be built, and is also an early Perivale machine, dating from about 1935.



There are detail changes from the Model 750, but the influence of the auto industry is self-evident in some of the fittings. The rectangular badge that curves round the nozzle is strongly reminiscent of the Chrysler Airflow car of 1934, and the cleaner also features a gimmick that was sometimes found on luxury cars of the period - a badge that illuminates when the machine is running.

This Hoover was bought from Ebay. The seller had rescued it from a local library that was being demolished. The flex was missing, but the machine runs well now one has been fitted.

Dyson Tech:
Hoover Junior 375

The 375 was the second version of the Hoover Junior, launched in late 1935 and using some styling cues from other models, like the 825. But the Junior was unusual in that it was built only for the UK market, and was not sold in the USA.



This model was built until 1950 (post war versions have a serial number beginning with the letter F, and late ones have wide front wheels with no height adjuster), and set the trend for the Hoover Junior being the best-selling vacuum cleaner in the UK, a position it held on to until the 1980s.

This example was sourced via a small ad in the local free paper.

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