kirbybb
Brandon,
Unlike your typical household Kirby, this breed of vacuums with their non-removable heads were sold to businesses. All of these had 18" wide nozzles.
The first in this lineup was the Kirby Janitronic, produced from 1967 to 1968. It was a metallic copper on the external parts, with coppertone trim pieces. Unlike what followed, the head on this machine was actually removable.
Then came the rebranding to Super-Sweep, following Scott & Fetzer's purchase of American-Lincoln. The first entry in this newly-named series of 18" wide cleaners had a "St. Patrick's Day" color scheme, with emerald green external parts and white and emerald green trim pieces (white handle grip, emerald green cord, white nozzle and headlight trim). This version was produced from 1968 to 1972.
Next up was a brand new color scheme of army green throughout (same as the Kirby Dual Sanitronic 80's trim pieces). This version was also the first to have a 3-wire cord, instead of the 2-wire one like the Janitronic and the 1st-gen Super-Sweep. This 2nd-gen version was produced from 1972 to 1979.
And then, we come to the 3rd-gen Super-Sweep 180 with blue external housing parts and white trim pieces (white bag assembly, and white handle grip, headlight and nozzle bumpers, and white belt cover), produced from 1979 to 1982. Unlike what came before, this had a much-improved motor assembly, with a new-style field and carbon brush assembly. The handle fork and grip were changed to what we saw on the Classic III as part of that model's mid-1978 changes: the grip now had a new-style cord hook, and the fork had the hooks relocated to the toe-touch control side. In late 1980, the 10-blade metal fan was replaced by the 11-blade Lexan plastic fan. This 3rd-gen Super-Sweep would continue into 1982-85 as the Super-Vac 180, which had the Heritage-style wide wheels on all fours.
~Ben
