Hoover Breathe Easy/late model Elite

[fan-of-fans]

Today I saw an interesting Hoover Elite-based machine that I had never seen. It was maroon, with a hard bag cover that was translucent and the model name was Breathe Easy. It was typical Elite style with a side hose and tool rack. The hood was one I had never seen before. It had a smallish curved headlight and rounded height adjustment. Similar to the Soft Guard style hood but this looked quite different than those. It was also 12 amps.

This had to be a really late one. Has anyone seen one of these?

 

[fantomfan]

I have seen one of those before

I saw it about a year ago at a goodwill. I think it was $10. I would have bought it, but It sounded horrible when I turned it on- I think the fan was busted. I would say that is one of the later elite style machines- probably from the early 2000's.

 

[durango159]

Is it the one below?

The Hoover Elite series was one of their first inceptions as a plastic styled vac that was fan first. Unless it says Elite or has that hood I don't consider any other Hoover an Elite model.

I guess my question is whether it had a 12" or 15" widepath hood? If it's 15" then I have a thread on the forum that was just started a couple weeks ago at request of another member. If it's 12" then its more based off a Caddy Vac styled machine, my best guess, but without the removable tool caddy.

I did some Googling to see if I could find what you were talking about. Wondering if the machine below is what you saw? This has a 12" hood, with Caddy Vac styled base. The bag compartment is more closely related to a Hoover Preferred series and would fit a Type A. The handle is based off of Hoover Preferred with that tan overlay and the on/off switch is most likely along the side of machine halfway down behind the bag compartment.

http://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?22875_10~1

 

[durango159]

Here is one of the first Caddy Vacs to hit the market. Same hood as the burgundy vacuum above. The first Caddy Vac as this greenish teal above had a cloth bag inter-lay on a plastic surround. This machine can also be seen as the Turbo Power 3700. Later models with same base but Type Z styled bag compartment would be the red Caddy Vac, Hoover Runabout with removable tool holder and later version Hoover Turbo Power 2000 Caddy Vac styled machine.

The gorgeous Navy blue colored Caddy Vac in the bottom of this ad has a more straight headlight lens and was used on the more entry level Caddy Vacs. Gotta love that color though!!!

 

[fan-of-fans]

It looked just like the one you posted. The switch is indeed on the side of the handle. It just surprised me because I saw the top of the bag compartment and thought "oh that's a maroon Preferred" and then when I saw the bag door being clear and the hood, I thought "that's interesting".

That Caddy Vac with the cloth bag insert is pretty cool. I don't know if I've seen one. I know I have some JcPenney catalogs with those in them, maybe even that catalog page is in one of them. I don't know, by the time those came out I wasn't really into vacuums anymore, so never really looked at those pages more than a quick glance.

I didn't realize those later style hoods had so many versions. Looks like there were at least three.

 

[vacman117]

I've got this model lying around somewhere in storage. If I'm correct, this was one of the very last Elites. They had a 12 amp motor and the brush roll had one row of bristles and a beater bar.

Chase

 

[director12]

Looks like an interesting vac.

 

[fantomfan]

I have one!

I got it today for $8 at the goodwill (that was after the 50% off). It has the hose and wand. It has lots of life left in the brushroll, and the light works! I may need to change the belt.. It is a little dirty but it's almost mint as far as condition goes. It was made in may 2002. I also got a DD Ultra mvp last tuesday off of CL for $5. It needed a belt, but it works great now. It is missing the tools except for the edge wedge, and the handle release is missing. But I guess that is ok, because I think that these are fairly uncommon, and it was $5.

 

[director12]

Nice.

 

[eureka1998]

They also made a similar machine but bright red and labeled the Dimension. Hoover was really into using the same names on different machines.