Electrolux Model E and Model AE Launches

[kevin]

Would someone please give factual information (not conjecture) when the Model E and Model AE were launched? A prominent contributor on Vacuumland and one who should have the correct facts said both began in 1955; however, according to owner's manuals I have discovered that there was a Model E manual produced in 1955 but not a Model AE. There is, however, a combined Model E/Model AE manual that was produced in 1956. Not sure if there was an individual one for the Model AE later on.

Here is a photo of the title page of the Model E manual, but I do not have one of the combined manual. If you have it or possibly another Model E or Model AE title page please post it:

 

[super-sweeper]

1955 could only be a copyright date, it doesn't necessarily mean the vacuum was launched the same year. Manuals are often made before the vacuum goes into production, and also made with prototype models. This year only copyrights the paperwork, it appears to have no connection to the exact year of launch. That means you could copyright the instructions a full year before the cleaner goes into production, but that doesn't necessarily mean the E might have been released in 1955.


 


What really helps if the owner fills out the manual, including the date of purchase!

 

[kevin]

Very interesting, Alex. I'd never heard that before--thanks. So, do you know if both the Model E and Model AE launched in 1955?

I'll never be able to figure out why there's so much ambiguity with the production years of Aerus/Electrolux cleaners--especially the ones of the Electrolux/AB Electrolux era and the Electrolux/Consolidated Foods era. Idk ... maybe all the companies have this same situation. It just seems that some such as Kirby and Hoover have more accurate information, but I could be wrong.

 

[electrolux137]

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The Model E was introduced in 1954 and the Model E-Automatic in 1956.

 

[super-sweeper]

I can tell you all of Kirby's launch years, but I'm still new on Electrolux! yay Charles!

 

[tig21er]

Electrolux

says Model E was introduced in 1954 and the AE was launched in 1956.electrolux 137 is right.

 

[kevin]

Thanks for confirming. Not that I doubt you, but I do find it interesting that the 1955 Model E manual's title page still carries the "new" adjective. It may be that the 'E' was introduced in October 1954, and the manual was updated in early 1955 after the stabilizer was added. As for the 'AE' that likely debuted in April 1956, because the manual for the E/AE has a July 1956 date with a K_U serial id; unless it was a test-market sale or pre-sale before they were available.

 

[dysonman1]

The model E was not launched in 1954. It went into production in October, 1955. The Automatic E was not launched until April, 1956. It replaced the LXI as the top of the line model.

 

[tig21er]

As I

said in my reply Electrolux said the E was introduced in 1954 and AE was introduced in 1956. Official picture from Electrolux.

 

[electrolux137]

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Normally, I would be loathe to contradict any information from Tom Gasko since he is such a treasure-trove of historical information. But in this case I must disagree.

While Electrolux company information isn't always correct or reliable on older models, I know for a definite fact that the Model E came out first, in 1954, and the E-A in 1956.

One way I know that they didn't both come out at the same time is that in the mid-1960s when I lived on a little island in Virginia, there was a family on the Island who lived in one house and the grandparents in a house right next door to them. The family had a Model E with a cord winder, and the grandparents next-door had a Model E-Automatic (also with a cord-winder).

One day I commented about the two different models to the grandmother when I saw her using her E-A. She said something along the line of (probably paraphrasing), "Well, my daughter bought an Electrolux one day from the door-to-door salesman. He came over here trying to sell us one, but I felt I didn't need a new machine yet so we didn't get one. Then when he came around again a couple of years later we did buy one. I'm glad we waited because ours is a better model!"

A side-note: The family's Model E had a Model XXX hose on it! Interrogation about it revealed that the original hose "went bad," so they used the hose from Grandma's old Electrolux XXX!

One day I was playing in the grandparents' barn with the little girls who lived next door with the Model E. I was snooping around in the barn and saw an old Electrolux under a shelf. This was long before I knew one model from another, but I had seen enough XXXs over the years to know it was an Electrolux.

As soon as I spied it, I ran over and pulled it out from under the shelf. Connected to the front of it: A Model E hose, with a hammertone-blue suction coupler! It was very faded and the cover was unraveling and very loose at both ends. I guess that's what the lady meant by the hose having gone bad! (Not meaning it joined a gang or started doing drugs and robbing people hahaha) I recognized it as the same hose I recalled seeing on our neighbor's Model E when we previously lived in Hampton, Virginia, and I realized it must have been the original hose from the Model E next door.

I have to go out for a while; when I come back I'll scan some pages from several E and E-A instruction manuals showing dates of 1954, '55 and '56. And an LX manual with some surprising information written in it!

 

[DesertTortoise]

He goes into the barn with the girls and all he plays with are a vacuum?

 

[kevin]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Discussions like this can help us all to double-check our information and clean out the metaphorical cobwebs with our metaphorical Electroluxes!

I've said it so many times, but it bears repeating ... It sure would be great if a longtime Aerus/Electrolux branch office manager/franchisee/associate would produce a vintage list of serial ids by month and year as Kirby and other companies have available. Even though researching and discussing information and stories--such as Charles'--is fun, too. The lists, though, could be the "answers in the back of the book"--remember that?

Hopefully, if there are any Aerus franchisees who have more current lists, they will save them for posterity. In fact, it would be great if they would post what they have on Vacuumland.

 

[electrolux137]

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Okay kids, here are four scans:

#1 - Model E instruction manual, copyright date 1954.

#2 - Model E instruction manual, copyright date 1955. This particular copy [I have several of them dated 1955] came with a loose, folded leaflet of four pages pertaining to the Model E-A that obviously was printed separately and inserted by hand into the E instruction manual when the E-A first came out.

They wouldn't have done a separate run of the E manuals just to update the copyright date to 1956; they clearly used up the remainder of the 1955-version Model E manuals with the added insert pertaining to the Model E-A. And then...

#3 - Model E & E-A instruction manual, copyright date 1956. Notice reference to both models on the page. This version has the pages from the separate leaflet as described above integrated into the manual itself.

And, as a bonus-surprise:

#4 - Model LX instruction manual with a sale date of January 1957! This is a full year after the E-A came out!! It most likely would have been an LXI.

I have always believed that some Electrolux salesmen held on to a few older models to offer at a discount for "last-gasp" sales and this seems to confirm that belief. I remember the Electrolux Man coming to my parents' house in the early 1960s and having in his station wagon new boxes containing a couple of Model Fs and XXXs along with the then-current Models G and R.

And I have also been told by an Electrolux old-timer who used to service a rural area that some older customers preferred the older-style model with sleds, so some of the salesmen did keep a few XXXs on hand for when that preference was expressed -- even into the late-1960s.

And speaking of the LXI, somewhere around here I have a copy of what must have been the last version of the LX manual: On two pages -- the page showing how to attach the Vaporizer to the blower-end and the page showing how to change the filter (with six small illustrations on it) -- the blower cover shown is the new-style LXI cover (carried into the E & E-A) and a rear axle with two wheels. But @#$% #%#@%@## I can't find that @##$%#@% manual anywhere. I hope it's not lost, as I am sure it's quite rare. Does anyone else have this version of the LX manual?

"And now--" as Paul Harvey used to intone, "you have -- the Rest of the Story."

 

[kevin]

Very cool, Charles. Thanks for the 411 and pics!!!!