Good god, there's a lot of inaccuracies in that.
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Just a few years earlier, they advertised a FREE Airline Ticket, to any destination, IF you bought a new Hoover. The problem was, they failed to place a price limit on the model you purchased
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Wrong. There were 2 phases of the Free Flights promotion - the first to selected European destinations (which was a huge succcess) and second to either New York or Florida. Hoover specified the destination. Also, you had to spend £99 or more on ANY Hoover product, it was not restricted to vacuum cleaners and it did have a price limit.
The Hoover company responsibile for the free flights fiasco and the Hoover company behind the Vortex are 2 completely different, totally unrelated companies. Hoover Europe had long since been sold to Candy by the time the Vortex was even in development.
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The very first Hoover Dual Cyclonic vacuum cleaner, the Triple Vortex, in stunning candy apple red
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Wrong. The very first Hoover Vortex was white with red writing for the TOL and white with black writing for the entry model. The red Vortex and blue Vortex Power were modified versions of the original Triple Vortex and were brought out after the law suit.
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At about 2/3 the price of a Dyson, it was an instant hit. People who thought the Dyson "too expensive" bought the Hoover. Hoover launched a huge sales and marketing campaign throughout Europe.
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Again, completely not true. The Vortex was in direct competition with Dyson and retailed for near enough the same price. I seem to recall the entry model being £199 and the higher end model with the cord rewind was £229 - the same price range as the DC01 and DC04 of the time. The Vortex also never matched the sales of the Dyson cleaners as Hoover's reputation was in tatters already. Free flights and the Candy takeover were still fresh in people's minds.
People wanting cheaper, bagless cleaners were buying Electrolux "The Boss" cleaners and Panasonic uprights which had been modified to fit a single, low efficiency cyclones to compete in the bagless market. Plus, bagged cleaners still far out-numbered bagless at the time, at least in terms of choice anyway.
I'm also 99% certain that the Vortex was UK specific, and never launched across Europe. The mainland European market is dominated by cylinders and I think only the Discovery bagless cylinder from that era was available in most European countries.
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Hoover's cleaner was plagued with motor problems due to the fine dust leakage through their imperfect copy of Dyson's cyclones. Low airflow, high motor temperature, and a very dusty exhaust stream killed the machine within months of purchase.
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This is partly true. There were issues with the cyclone letting very fine dust through the motor, which did cause a lot of problems, but this was caused by ineffective filters (or rather, no filter at all!) rather than the cyclone itself. Dyson had opted for disposable filters on the DC01 and early 04's, but the original Vortex had a totally different set up, with only a sort of mesh thing to hold the dust in. The idea behind the triple vortex was that the dust would continue to constantly recirculate through the cyclones and never reach the motor (in a similar to way to the Dyson Cinnetic...funny that!) and in testing, it worked very well. However, in reality, when it came to actual household dirt, it just couldn't cope.
This was modified on the later red Vortex and Vortex Power, which had the big sponge washable filters like the later Dyson DC04 and a modified cyclone design.
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Immediately, his law team was on the case
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Not quite. The Vortex was on sale a good year before the lawsuit. Infact, the original Vortex cleaners are in the Argos 2001 catalogue, so it was at least 2 years before they disappeared completely.
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The Triple Vortex model was pulled from the market, and a filter fitted to the inside of the clear bin. Making the Triple Vortex, a single Vortex machine
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Again, this is only partialy true. This did happen, but not until much longer after the law suit. Hoover modified the Vortex to a different dual cyclone design that didn't infringe on Dyson's patent. This was when the different coloured machines came out - there was a black entry level model, red mid-range and blue TOL "Vortex Power". These were again high end, pricey machines directly competing with Dyson. It wasn't until a few years later that the Vortex style was converted to a single cyclone machine, but it was also rebadged as "Hurricane" and the price dropped massively to around £120.
The Vortex may have had it's issues, but in use, it was actually a much better performer than the DC01 - stronger hose suction, better brushroll, far more user-friendly tool set up and easier to empty. It also looked like a much more "traditional" style of vacuum compared to the DC01 and DC03, which I recall a lot of people thought were quite ugly at the time.
One thing that did boost sales of the Vortex was that it was sold in Supermarkets - I remember Tesco and Asda both stocked them. So this meant that you could pick up a new vacuum whilst you were out doing your weekly shopping and didn't have the inconvenience of trecking to an electrical shop.
[this post was last edited: 10/4/2015-09:55]
