Hoover Celebrity S3005

[vintagehoover]

Another nice donation to the collection from a gallery visitor: a boxed Hoover Celebrity! It's not quite 'mint condition', but it doesn't seem to have had a huge amount of use in its lifetime.

Apparently, the lady's daughter had recently moved in to a new house, and found it sitting in the attic. She had no use for it, but thought it too nice to just throw away. After considering donating it to a charity shop, she saw one of the newspaper articles about the exhibition, and brought it along.

I spent some time showing her the collection and answering her questions, and she couldn't have been more thrilled that it was going to a good home!

 

[vintagehoover]

...

 

[vintagehoover]

All that seems to be missing is the upholstery nozzle and the little Hoover logo from the floor tool. Can't really complain, though!

When she gave the cleaner to me, the manual was missing, but she found it a few days later and mailed it along to the gallery!

 

[vintagehoover]

Set up for use...of course, being a Hoover, it runs like new!

 

[vintagehoover]

The cleaner...

 

[vintagehoover]

With the motor-cover removed. Extremely clean inside.

 

[suckolux]

Once owned a machine like that, it hovered.

 

[arh1953]

I love your new Celebrity!

Lucky you! What a generous woman too. I have five Celebrities, it's my favorite Hoover. Two of them float, three have wheels.

 

[vacbear58]

Looks like a late one

Jack
The Celebrity Air Ride was around in this country quite a long time, certainly from 1975 if not sooner, I suspect from the time of the 858 Connies sold here. Origionally sold with US floor nozzle and all purpose brush and telescopic tube. It appears in the 1981 brochure with the combination floor tool yours has, although there with telescopic tube too. It appears alongside the late model Connie (Yellow with rocker switch) interestingly also with aluminum tube, the rest of the range having gone over to plastic.

The Air ride also appeared in Orange/Brown colour scheme, although I remember the yellow version as being the first scheme. We also had one larger model Celebrity here with wheels, even more rare than the Concept one. We certainly never had the variety of the US models, and certainly no power nozzle. I suspect, from seeing an POD here that it was the base model of the larger Celebrities.

It seems strange that Hoover would have had two floating models side by side (I presume the Air ride was the successor to the Connie in the US) but the Air ride was not popular here, although they do crop up on ebay reasonably often. I suspect many of them shared the fate of yours - consigned to the attic

Alan, I am sorry but I think the air ride is a horrible cleaner (OK I do have one in my collection) noisy (the Connie being reasonably quiet), and incredibly inconvenient as the handle was so low (not a problem with the Connie), a comparitivly short hose and the attendent problem of the Connie, of getting it to float over door straddles etc. An example of form over function, to me it never had the quirky charm of the Connie. But that is just my opinion of course. When I first moved to London in 1986 the house I lived in used one as its daily driver and one over the novelty I HATED it.

Of course this was the time when Hoover was flooding the market with all manner of overlapping models (uprights too) so confusing the consumer in what to buy.

That said, it is great for Jack to have one in such good condition and with the box too. Interesting too that it has UK instruction, mine came with US instructions, but it is much older. Here is the page from the 1981 instructions, courtsey of Hooverbaby

 

[seamusuk]

Fantastic

Hey Jack...

That looks great to me - whats the serial number- as Al said with that floor tool and the 2 seperate extension tubes its probably a late one??

Seamus

 

[arh1953]

That's a shame

I hate to say this Vacbear, but I've only tried mine once apiece! I rather liked the performance, for a straight suction cleaner, and the last one I bought is supposed to have a power head, but I couldn't find it. It's the fourth one on the brochure.
(picture property of the VCCC)

 

[suckolux]

I think mine was gold, be about 79 maybe? Didn't like the dust it stirred up, sold it. Later my boyfriend had the big one with wheels and powerhead. he still has it!

 

[vacbear58]

Not the only one

Alan
I doubt you are not the only one to have tried a machine more than once, unless you have very accessable storage it is not easy to keep using machines in rotation. Actually I can go one better and say that there are several in my collection I have not actually used at all! Oh how I envy members with their large & dry basements. The large Celebrity be had here was an earlier version than the ones you posted (they actually look quite nice) with the large round motor housing on the top
Al

 

[vintagehoover]

That's an interesting sentence...

'Suction power falls as a vacuum cleaner bag fills. And there goes cleaning effectiveness!'

I've heard that before somewhere...

 

[vintagehoover]

Al - I agree with you on several points, particularly the short hose. It really TOO short - I find it almost unusable because of this. I'm not so worried about the positioning of the handle, though - it means that the slimline cleaner lies flat against you when you carry it. This makes it very easy to carry around, compared to the rather bulky Connie!

Alan - yes, it was very kind of her to donate it. She wouldn't take any money for it, so I suggested that I make a donation to a charity of her choosing. And since The Lightbox gallery itself is a charitable organisation, she picked that!

Seamus - the serial number is S300571116059

 

[arh1953]

Al-I have so little space here, most of the machines are in horrible places, some have never even been turned on, I really want to get a shed, or have the screen porch closed, but I've put out so much money over the past three years it isn't funny.

I'm so glad you got the Celebrity Jack, the lady made a good call on that. It is a frivolous little machine for sure, but it is a Hoover!

 

[petek]

The air ride Celebrity is one of my youthful favorites. I bought the red model new, would have been circa 1980, for a then curent BF. It did come with a power nozzle although the nozzle cord was external to the hose.

 

[hooverbaby]

Another Pristine example, Jack!

It's always nice to get virtually unused machines in their original boxes like that. Mind you, it would put me off using the machine, since I'd want it to stay that way!

Al, we have a dry basement here but unfortunately dad fills it with all his books..so I have to keep most of my cleaners elsewhere..

Stephen

 

[arh1953]

Wish I could have one Stephen

We can't have basements in south Florida, there is actually one house with a basement on 11 Mile Road in Fort Pierce, and the new antique mall up the highway, which was a grocery store from 1957 to ? has a basement, but it's not fully sunken into the ground.