When Eureka Williams hit the jackpot in the 1974 edition of Consumer Reports, many of their lineup of new 2000 series uprights and 1200 series Power Teams were top rated over everyone else. My dad worked in advertising in those days and he had a subscription to a trade magazine called Home Furnishings Daily. The annual Housewares Show in Chicago always produced a great special edition of HFD. In 1973, Eureka Williams had a 4-page glossy insert showing every colourful model in their new line-up! Many of those models would go on to lead the ratings in Consumer Reports a year later. That triggered my campaign to replace our old Eureka 260 Automatic with a fancy-shmancy Eureka Rugulator Cordaway 2082.
That advertising insert was gorgeous. Eureka had finally decided to add a rainbow of colours to their line up as Hoover had been doing for years. The top rated Best Buy Power Team was that red 1255 Princess followed by the excellent Burnt Orange 1265 (?) canister with deluxe control panel. There were Avocado green uprights and chocolate brown budget canisters. There were Tangerine Dial-a-Naps and Royal Blue canisters. The line-up in 1973 was really beautiful....
If someone out there has that colour trade magazine insert from the 1973 Housewares Show, it would be so great to see it again!
Sounds awesome. Your Dad was lucky. I was wondering when Eureka changed over from their modest 60s, faint pastels to the vibrant colors of the 70s. And You're right, Hoover had an awesome color line-up.... until the 90s.