The Supermatic was the only twin tub left on the market when I worked in sales, and to give an idea of just how expensive it was, we had it priced at £429.99. That was just for the standard model, as the Deluxe with autorinse had already been discontinued by that point. It was the same story for the Hotpoint top loader, which eventually crept up to a whopping £549.99.
Lack of demand towards the end made these machines expensive to produce as there were no economies of scale to be had, and only by jacking up the price could they remain profitable. In both cases, we eventually received an update from Hotpoint announcing that production had ended due to no longer being economically viable, and once any remaining stock was gone, that was it.
It's true by the way, the only people that bought twin tubs in later years were the blue rinse brigade. The same ones who bought Hoover Turbo Juniors and dry irons!
