GE Commodore Vacuum with powerhead (Looks like from Japan)

[adam-aussie-vac]

Hey guys, I picked up a GE vacuum which looks which appears to be made in Japan but unconfirmed,like it includes a power head which I am finding very unusual, as I remember Japan mainly being the country of straight suction cleaners and Coldwater washing with laundry

 

[kirbylux77]

Actually, that wouldn't be that unusual. By the looks of that powerhead and the caster wheel, that looks to be a early 80s rebadged Panasonic canister. And those Panasonic canisters were made in Japan before the early 90s when Panasonic bought out Whirlpool's North American vacuum business and eventually stopped importing the Japanese canisters.

What's the voltage on it? And was this for the Australian market, or what country did this ship to you from?

 

[eurekaprince]

I agree…we North Americans were lucky to have some excellent Panasonic power nozzle canisters in our stores in the 1970’s and 1980’s. These were all made in Japan and eventually outperformed even Eureka canisters in Consumer Reports tests at the time.

It makes sense that Matsushita/National/Panasonic would leverage their expertise in power nozzles by offering them to markets outside the USA and Canada. The hose handle on that GE is identical to some of the hoses sold with North American Panasonics….yet it seems closer to the ones we got in the 1990’s after Panasonic took over the US Whirlpool factory.

 

[luxlife]

That’s a direct-connect wire setup on the hose handle

The only direct connect I ever saw on a Panasonic was after their canisters became Kenmore clones. Perhaps this is another Japanese brand?

 

[eurekaprince]

But it could be that Panasonic shipped those electrified hoses from the former Whirlpool plant and packaged them in Japan as part of this cleaner destined for Australia. Panasonic is a large global company and so it seems reasonable that an American-made vacuum hose ended up on a cleaner sold in Australia.

 

[eurekaprince]

Found it! Believe it or not, this Australian GE vacuum was made by the Japanese Mitsubishi company. See link below for an online sale of one in Malaysia:

https://carousell.app.link/oHQhduv8RCb

 

[luxlife]

Your link doesn’t work

But at least you found it.

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

Oh wow that is a beautiful vacuum,

Also here are the photos for the people if links don’t work

 

[kirbylux77]

WOW!

Mitsubishi made vacuums? Who knew! That is one very cool vacuum! Especially since they had a bagless system similar to what Sanyo canisters used, with the pleated filter you cleaned by turning a crank that turned plastic fins to knock the dust off the filter.

I swear though, that is definitely a 1980s Panasonic Jet Flo canister clone though. The powerhead, powerhead neck, hose handle and canister wheels just scream Panasonic. The Jet Flo must have played a big design influence for sure.

Adam, is your GE Commodore bagged or bagless like the Mitsubishi?

 

[eurekaprince]

Re Japanese vacuum clones: I am not quite sure how strong the copyright laws are in Japan, but having lived in Tokyo for a short while in summer of 1988, I can attest to the fact that the assortment of canister vacuums available in stores looked very very uniform across all the brands: National Panasonic, Sanyo, Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsubishi, etc. For example, it looked like all the companies got their electrified hoses from one supplier - all the hose handles had similar power switches. The bagless vacs all had similar “dust cassette boxes” that used large filter boxes with combinations of fine mesh screens and accordion fabric filters. Even the carpet/bare floor nozzles looked very similar…probably coming from one supplier - similar to how Wessel Werk supplies so many similar carpet nozzles to a wide array of manufacturers.

It would be interesting to find out how one particular innovation was not protected by any copyright: on many Japanese canisters pulling out and rewinding the cord also caused a gear mechanism to “flick” the panels of the fabric filter to release fine dust into the cassette box!

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

I’m not sure what kind of filter system that it uses

But I think the machine actually may be manufactured by Sanyo as you can see it’s got almost the exact same button for the filter box release and it looks almost the exact same where the little cover for the wing down the back

 

[eurekaprince]

This is getting more and more mind-boggling. Indeed, the top component with the bag check indicator looks like it was made by Sanyo, but the rest of the vac looks more like it came from Mitsubishi. Bizarre. Maybe if we had close shot of the ratings plate on the GE, we could get more clues?

 

[luxlife]

Sanyo and Panasonic lookalikes

It’s just as mind boggling as that little egg shaped machine from the 70’s and 80’s that both companies sold. [this post was last edited: 9/7/2023-14:06]

 

[eurekaprince]

Those little compact Sanyos were so cute! And powerful! I always had a laugh when I saw the Kenmore clones at Sears which were labelled “Let’s Clean”!!!!!

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

Hey guys, it’s here

I’ll open it so we can all get a better look

PS the cord filter section actually works on this machine

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

Although when I had a look at this, when I tried it on my mum’s carpet, I think it actually needs a new belt, and I did check the Vacuum and it was kind of full of dust so I use the other GE I have

 

[eurekaprince]

Boy…the bottom of the power nozzle looks more like a Hoover Powermatic from the early original design in the 1970’s. It’s got that bare floor switch that brings down a squeegie while shutting off the brush motor. But maybe the early Panasonic Jet-Flos also had that feature?

I am very confused. This is fascinating!!!

 

[eurekaprince]

Nix my previous post. That’s definitely a clone of a Panasonic Jet-Flo power nozzle. Even the wands and hose are almost identical.

That GE has got to be made by Matsushita/National/Panasonic. Would be interesting to see a catalogue of other Australian GE vacs from the same year this one came out.

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

LOL, if you want, I can show you the other 2 GE

Vacuum that were potentially available at the time, the first one I think was probably the GE swivel top, while the second one was the GE Sadie heavy duty Dry Vacuum then potentially this one came along