1956 Sunbeam Dual Deluxe

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Since when did you put so much stock in Consumer Reports? I'm sure everyone on this forum has heard you refer to them as "communist reports". Why the sudden change of heart?
 
Love this machine! I have had 2 of them over the years. Min also had the turbo nozzle. Hey Tom I saw at one point another of these turbo nozzles in the same color but was slightly different. If I remember right Billy Lipman bought it when we were in MN.
 
I don't have a youtube account, but, at the Vacuum Cleaner Collectors Convention, the second weekend in June, at the Vacuum Cleaner Museum in St. James - I'm sure any number of my friends who already have videos up on Youtube, would be glad to film it. The Sunbeam is not loud, yet has tremendous suction. The Turbine Brush is also pleasing to the ear when running.
 
This was one of the few cleaners in that particular report that were in the correct positions within the ratings. In that same issue, they rated the Electrolux AF only "fair", and put the Apex Strato cleaner in the middle (despite it having one of the best rug tools ever made). The Air-Way model 88 was at the bottom of the ratings.
 
So out of ALL the years Consumer Reports has been publishing ratings of appliances, it just so happens they finally got it right... just once...in 1959/60 with this one and only cleaner? Wow... You've also said some manufacturers paid for favorable ratings (airway and Hoover would not), does that in turn mean Sunbeam paid for this rating?

hooverboy81++4-26-2015-20-42-42.jpg
 
No. Communist Reports also got it 'right' in 1970, when they rated the Electrolux 1205 and Model L as the first and second highest in the ratings. Rarely did they get even one model correct in the positions, but they did get the Sunbeam correct (Yet did not get the Apex correct, which should have been second in the ratings). So, in total, even the report with the Sunbeam at the top, wasn't 'correct' totally. Just on one model.
 
Toms right...

Consumer reports IMHO rated products on how much of a donation the company would give them,..sometimes they did ok and sometimes it was a joke, an example of this was in the mid 60s they rated a Maytag washer best, they said it handled a large load better than most and washed better than most, they rated a Norge only average in washing ability and said it would not handle as large a load as most machines, now I will agree that a Maytag was more reliable, but a Norge will outwash it by a great margin and will certainly handle a much bigger load than the Maytag, I love to read them, but I don't believe many of their observations...the biggest joke EVER was in 1936 they said a GE, AV1 upright was a better cleaner than a Hoover 150!!!ANYONE knows a 150 was one of the all time best uprights ever made.
 
Kenkart

Excellent point. I was surprised to see that rating as well! Many say it was "over engineered", but I personally feel that it set the stage for cleaners in the future. Way ahead of its time for 1936!

Tom- congrats. There is something so awesome about FACT based history. [this post was last edited: 4/29/2015-14:14]
 
Yes. That was my point. When you have the ACTUAL machines that were rated, along with the magazine's ratings from that time, comparing the rating to the actual performance is always eye opening. There were very few instances where the actual rating matched the performance. The Electrolux 1205 and the Sunbeam are two examples where, compared to every thing else offered at the time, CR "got it right".
 
sunbeam dual deluxe

I've seen this vacuum at the museum, it was so far ahead of its time. Much more powerful than anything else at that time, a turbo brush, it would clean better than many vacuums made today. Here's an awesome idea, try the Tacony Volt with that sunbeam, that would make one mean cleaning machine. Though the turbo brush was good, the Volt would probably clean even better.
 

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