eurekaprince
Well-known member
Looking back, it seems that Japan's National Panasonic (Matsushita) company was exploring ways to enter the North American vacuum cleaner market in the late 1960's. With the success of Japanese home entertainment products on the North American market, they must have sought to expand their sales by exporting home appliances as well.
This Viking for Canada's venerable Eaton's department store chain was one example. Panasonic was probably already making Viking televisions and radios and stereos for Eaton's and so expanding to vacuums was probably an easy step to take.
The other example was manufacturing Eureka's Emperor upright probably around the same time - late 1960's, early 1970's. I think they were also involved in the making of that unique Eureka Easy-Glide electric carpet sweeper. And maybe some Sears Kenmore uprights at the time.
In the end, National Panasonic made a move that would revolutionize the kind of upright North Americans would soon see in their stores: they bought the rights to Hoover's Dial-a-Matic concept and made it 100 times better than the original. This happened in the early 1970's I think. The Panasonic "bag first" upright concept really took off and was a very successful corporate move. By the 1990's, they had bought the Whirlpool vacuum plant and began making all those Kenmore uprights and canisters for Sears.
This Viking for Canada's venerable Eaton's department store chain was one example. Panasonic was probably already making Viking televisions and radios and stereos for Eaton's and so expanding to vacuums was probably an easy step to take.
The other example was manufacturing Eureka's Emperor upright probably around the same time - late 1960's, early 1970's. I think they were also involved in the making of that unique Eureka Easy-Glide electric carpet sweeper. And maybe some Sears Kenmore uprights at the time.
In the end, National Panasonic made a move that would revolutionize the kind of upright North Americans would soon see in their stores: they bought the rights to Hoover's Dial-a-Matic concept and made it 100 times better than the original. This happened in the early 1970's I think. The Panasonic "bag first" upright concept really took off and was a very successful corporate move. By the 1990's, they had bought the Whirlpool vacuum plant and began making all those Kenmore uprights and canisters for Sears.
