What does Vanguard" mean?
Well,
It's been a minute since I was in English lit, but I believe "Vanguard" either means first, or the "foremost" of something.
Such as: "The Vanguard by Eureka, is the foremost authority on dirt getting power, and convenience features to help you keep house!!!!"
Which is appropriate. This was Eureka's #1 model for the time, and incorporated all of their advanced features. You must remember that these machines were technically state of the art in 1973, and continued to be so for another decade before the first big wave of garbage was introduced.
New things were, the Rugulator and Dial-A-Nap rug height adjustments. Those were introduced in 1970 I believe and were still quite new, and technically savvy enough to keep boasting over. And IMHO two of the easiest mechanisms to adjust a cleaner in the entire industry. Also, a two-speed anything was considered then and now to be a "very" delux-ish feature; Low for your delicate things, and high for rug grabbing dirt pounding power. The brush roller in that machine was called the "Disturbulator", which I believe was reserved for the topmost models,which again IMHO was as close to perfection as Hoover's Triple action Agitator, until the patents on that ran out. Because of that, Eureka introduced the Vibra-Groomer in 1974, as my machine has it, and it finally allowed Eureka to achieve very close parity to their longtime arch-rival. And finally the Cordaway was always a TOL feature that was regarded as a convenience item, as you no longer had to do calisthenics to wrap up your cord.
And as I said in the previous post the chrome hood really wasn't a technical feature that made the thing go, or clean better, but was a visual upgrade that made the thing look great, and classy over the more plebeian models..
I however have no clue to decipher Eureka serial numbers. Ill look tonight at mine to see what my number says to see if their is some continuity to your thought of the last two digits being 73, I think if you add in the number before it you would get possibly July of 1973; 7/73?
Im super glad you got it tho....
Chad
A shot of my 1974 version, sans the chrome hood....
