Compact Electra C6

[briankirbyclass]

"She" sure has some LONG legs! Notice how long "her" legs are? Good grief "she" must be 7 feet 9 inches!

 

[kirbyotronic]

I'm going to have nightmares tonight!

I hope I can find more Compacts, they're one of my favorite canister vacuums!

Also, one of the wooden legs on the bottom of the hassock has a little chunk that got split off . Darn those idiots at the thrift shops! I could tell it was a "fresh" split when I got it, oh well. Does it affect the value/collectibility?

~Alex

 

[danemodsandy]

Bill:

"Would anyone happen to know the history behind the model name "Electra"?"

My understanding is that it goes back to Interstate Engineering Corporation's (IEC) roots in the aircraft component business. At the time IEC got into the vacuum business (1940), the Lockheed Electra L-10 (introduced in 1935) was a very famous, very highly thought-of airplane; it was Lockheed's first twin-engined, all-metal design. The Electra name (which Lockheed took from a star in the Pleiades, a cluster of stars in the Taurus Constellation) had very positive associations to people in the aircraft biz, even years after Lockheed's airplane went out of production (there was also an Electra passenger airliner, the L-188, introduced in '57). Naming IEC's own product "Electra" years later was probably the result of those associations; to IEC's people, "Electra" meant the finest, best-engineered product of its kind you could buy.

Here's a photo of a Lockheed Electra 10-E; this one was Amelia Earhart's:

 

[danemodsandy]

Vacuum Cleaners and Aircraft:

Bill:

If anyone's wondering what IEC was doing in the vacuum cleaner biz, it was to "smooth out" the financial ups and downs of the aircraft biz. When the economy is up or there's a war on, the aircraft biz is usually good, but peacetime and economic downturns can really hurt. Having a consumer product that people bought day in, day out was a pretty smart move for IEC at the time.

 

[methodistbill]

Electra Biggs

I was wondering if there was a Lockheed connection. Both the Lockheed Electra and the Buick Electra were named for a woman from my town -- Electra Waggoner Biggs. For those familiar with the art world, Electra was a famous sculptor. She sculpted the busts of Eisenhour, Bob Hope, Harry Truman, etc. In fact, the bust of Truman on the dime is modeled after her sculpture of him. Her most famous sculpture is of Will Rogers on horseback. The original sits in front of the Amon Carter Museum in Forth Worth. Another copy of that life-size sculpture sits on the campus of Texas Tech University. Anyway, she was quite the jet setter, coming from a wealthy ranching family. She spent time in New York but eventually came back to the family ranch here in Texas when she married a man named John Biggs. As I understand it, it was her husband who was friends with the engineer (whose name I don't know) at Lockheed who named the aircraft after Electra Biggs. Apparently, this guy drifted over to GMs Buick Motor Division where he was instrumental in designing and marketing a new luxury Buick called the Electra. Electra Biggs died in 2001, but her daughter still lives here and is a friend. I'll have to tell her that her Mom's name may have been lent to a vacuum cleaner too! LOL!

 

[methodistbill]

BTW

I don't know that all the detail of that story are correct. That's the story that floats around my town. I'll have to visit with her daughter to get the full scoop.

 

[methodistbill]

My Bad

Ok. My friend tells me that only the Buick was named for her Mom. Sorry about this drift. But you can see why I was curious about the origin of the model name. Again, sorry!