I emailed Air-Way Sanitizor about maybe touring the place someday. I also talked about how I collect vacuums, and how my favorite is an Air-Way. Here is my message:

Hi,

I am a collector of vacuum cleaners. Of my 6 vacuums (I don’t have too much room) I have an Air-Way Sanitizor 88 Mark II. This is one of my favorite and best vacuum cleaners. Is it possible for me to take a tour of the factory? I live in Birmingham, so it is not too much of a drive. My local vacuum store, Air-Way Vacuum, sold my mom a great “New Century” model, and she LOVES it! I think Air-Ways are some of the best built machines that I have ever worked with. I would love to see the factory sometime!

Thanks,

Kyle, age 14

Here is what I got back:

Kyle,

I am sorry but our insurance policy will not allow visitors to tour our plant because of liability.

Customer Service


ONE SENTENCE!! So what did happpen to Southern Hospitality??

Kyle,

I think they should have written a little more personal message. What they said is true. I worked for the Binney & Smith in Easton PA for 21 years, we made Crayola crayons, markers and pencils and all the other art products and "Silly Putty". Years ago we use to have tours of the plant but now because of liability and insurance purposes that all stopped. Call it "Lawsuit happy people". For me the best part is going out to the plant and watching "Silly Putty" being packaged in the eggs. What Binney did was build a museum and put in a scaled down crayon and marker line for people to see how they are made. Hershey did the same thing, They built a ride called "Chocolate World" , you ride through the whole production of a chocolate bar from growing the cocao beans to distribution.

I know most factories do not allow vistors, photos or videos for fear of proprietory secrets being stolen. You see that on the HGTV and The FoodNetwork when they do the specials.

Mike

I agree that they could have sent you a much more sincere letter and thanking you for thinking so highly of their product and so on.

I know like you I wrote to Kirby and to GE and Hoover when I was a kid. Kirby was really cool and sent me some belts along with a very nice letter. GE was incredible, I did ask for owners book for one of my favorite GE uprights and they did send a nice letter along with the book, which I still have to this day. Hoover also sent a very nice letter when I askd about my Hoover 28 and they did have the lenses for the front of the head light and yes they did send me one.

Now I realize all these things were done many years ago when I was a littel younger than you right now. Yes they were very kind to me as they should have been. These days, sadly, they are not into customer appreciation it seems.

The person who responded to you might have not been from the company itself, but from a customer service center where they only respond to emails and not think that they are justifying the company, but to only respond minimal responses.

Here is what you might have done, is to ask the members here on this website. Like Tom G.(a great and wonderful person and who helped design the current Airway model) he might have helped you get what you wanted or found a way for you to talk to an actual person, by email or phone. I think you have realized this is a great resource/site for info and you can learn alot by just asking what do the members suggest. They are wonderful bunch of people who are willing to help, and still can if you just ask kindly and see what you get back.

Sincerely,

David

Kyle:
I have video that I took at the Air-Way factory both for the launch of the Centurion 2000 and the Signature Series models.
As I was keenly involved in both of them, the President of Air-Way allowed me to take my video camera and film the creation of the machine from a single sheet of steel all the way through to the final product being put into the box. I'll be happy to bring the tapes with me to Omaha in 2007. I've screened them for the club in 2001 (to celebrate the launch of the Signature Series) but that was almost six years ago.

The factory is quite adequate for Air-Way's needs. However, you might be disappointed by its small size and lack of any 'old' models. Steve Tomberlin (Air-Way's President) bought Air-Way in 1979 and was a lawyer before he owned the manufacturing firm. To him, it's all about what we ARE selling TODAY and not about what we sold Yesterday. That's a shame really.

However, when the factory cleared out all the 'old stuff', they sent it to me. My twin motor model 35 (Chief) and 40 (Super Chief) as well as my model 50 (Scout) and my purple model 55 (1937) were all sent to me by Steve. I also got the original blueprints and technical drawings for the upright model F-1 (1929) so we could, with the drawings, make NEW model F-1's today.

I have TONS of Air-Way memorabilia, including demo cases, demo lights, etc. I have examples of all the old bags (for the uprights and canisters alike). I'll be displaying all my Air-Way stuff at the Mini Meet in December.

Those messages sure have helped. I will love to talk to you, Tom, some more. I do have a question for you, though.

I do wish companies, like Air-Way, would care about the history of the company like they care about recent manufacturing.

Tom: I would love to see a picture of the F-1, too. I never knew an upright Air-Way except the Chiefs and Scouts existed! I do like the design of the uprights. I am going to keep a lookout for Air-Way uprights to add to my collection.

Thank you very much everyone!! Everyone I have talked to HERE is SOOOO nice!! And I mean that!!

It's sad these days how industries have closed their visitor programs. I worked for the railroad until retirement and over the years it got harder and harder to allow "visitors" such as cub scout groups etc a chance to ride in the engine. The company was good though and they would provide a caboose etc to pull the kids around the yard etc. or if it was at the right time and no big shots were looking the engineer might let them all squeeze in and ride in the engine and let them all have a turn driving it up and down a track.

Kyle:
The Air-Way vacuum cleaner started out in 1920 as an upright. It had many patented features that became standards of the industry. For example, the Air-Way upright was the first upright in the world with a nozzle on a swivel (to eliminate the 'lawnmower' method of cleaning). It was the first upright to have a 'dirt finder' in it's clear (see-thru) valve, which directed the airflow either to the rug or up the hollow handle. The hollow handle was an industry first, and is still unique. The handle became a cleaning wand, and allowed for attachment of the cleaning hose.

The Air-Way's biggest 'first' is the disposable micro filtration cellulose sanitary dust container (bag) that Mr. Replogle invented and patented in 1915, seven years after the invention of the Hoover, when every other cleaner was in its infancy. The Air-Way was the first cleaner on the market to make a serious effort to keep the dust inside the machine. Hoover, for example, used satin bags that leaked dust like a sieve. The dust just blew right out. That's the secret of the early Hoover's success, the cloth didn't clog because it was so porus.

Air-Way was lighter and easier to use than any other cleaner of its day. But the real reason for its success was the sanitary aspect, because of the disposable bag that no one else had.

Until Hoover copied it in 1929. Hoover was so evious of Air-Way success (like they are today of Dyson's success) that they ingored patent LAW and copied the disposable bag, thinking they'd make MORE money than they would lose in a lawsuit. Strange, since Western Electric had, only a few years before, infringed Hoover's patents on the motor driven brush roller.

The bag was still under patent, and Hoover was promptly sued by Air-Way. Within two years, the Hoover paper bag was OFF the market, not to reappear for another ten years, when Air-Way's patents were finally up.

In the early 1930's (1933 to be exact) Air-Way added a motor driven brush to their upright, making it the FIRST vacuum in the world with a power nozzle. A separate motor driven brush, with the nozzle on Air-Way's patented swivel neck, made the Air-Way "Chief" the best cleaning upright, beating the Hoover 800 in cleaning. Since the Air-Way had Hoover's beater bars (on rubber holders to cushion the beating action), AND a second dedicated motor for suction, AND a micro filtration paper bag, AND the brush bar turned backwards (like the Singer R-1, Apex "Which Way", GE 111, and Premier "Grand"), the Air-Way trounced the Hoover all the way to the bank.

Interestingly, Air-Way claimed that they made it through the Great Depression, never going in the 'red', because of the sales of paper bags. While Hoover, Eureka, Royal, and others saw sales fall off almost to the point of disappearing, Air-Way salesmen had something to sell (bags) when other salesmen couldn't get in the door. The DirtMasteR model and the Super Chief (twin motor upright) were sold during the depression to many women who let the Air-Way man into the home to sell them bags. They saw the 'new model' and upgraded. We still see MANY twin motor Air-Way's today.

And then, Air-Way came up with another 'first'. The Sanitizor model 55. The first canister vacuum in the world with a disposable bag, a "Swivel Top", an attachment carrier, an extra long (9 foot) hose, and a carbon brush dust filter for the exhaust (the 'silencer'). More model 55 Air-Way's have been sold than Electrolux model XXX (30). Just slightly less than 4 million were sold, and they are still very much around today.

Well, that's a lot of Air-Ways but according to the math I worked out in my post in the Vintage section about the Model XXX/30 (okay Rick I give up!) entitled "Electrolux XXXs --- They're Everywhere! They're Everywhere!!," there were probably something like 17 million Model XXXs manufactured in the 17-year run of that model, and possibly quite a higher number than that.

Thanks for the info!! You are, oh, so very knowledgeable! I still love an Air-Way! I hope to get an upright if I am lucky. So their uprights never had hinges on the handle? They were at a fixed angle? That would seem kind of awkward, but I guess to make the hollow handle part work, it would have to not bend.

And are 55's the ones with purple? Whenever I look at one, they always seem grey. Maybe that is just dirt, but I don't know. I wish my local Air-Way store was still at its original location, because they would still have all the parts to old Air-Ways that anyone could ever dream of! Even the p/ns for the canisters! Possibly even uprights...

There were actually slightly over three million Electrolux model XXX's manufactured. This information is contained the the "Electrolux Factory News" that was reprinted many years ago (when Bob Taber was President of the Club). XXX's were made for thirteen years (1937 - 1941 and then 1947 -1954). Production slowed WAY down (with respect to model XXX) in September of 1952, when the LX went into production (launched in December of 1952). I worked with a salesman back in 1976, who sold XXX's and then LX's. He went to work for Lux in 1952, in April, and sold a ton of XXX's. But as soon as the LX came out, he said he never sold another XXX again. Nor did the other salesmen in the St. Louis branch. According to my late friend, the paper bag feature was so NEW and DESIREABLE, and the salesman could make a HUGE case for the it, that all the salesmen just sold the LX model. Without the cord winder, there was a $20 difference in cost between the $69 XXX and the $89 LX. The cord winder added $19 to either machine's price (and the floor polisher added another $30). But the cost of the basic LX (no cord winder, no companion, no polisher, no extras) was only $20 more than a model XXX. Who wouldn't have bought the LX, especially when they could make monthly payments of $6?

I just don't see how that could be possible. Read the caption on the photo again -- it stated that in 1949 the first of the THREE MILLION machines made SINCE THE END OF WWII was being delivered at that moment (for the photo opportunity).

Does that mean that no more were made after 1949, the date of the photo, and that none at all had been made before 1945, not even from 1937-41, when World War II ended? If your figure of 3,000,000 total made is correct, then that would have to be the case.

I think that figure of 3,000,000 total is yet another example of the NUMEROUS mistakes in Electrolux company literature. Frankly, given their attitude, it's surprising they were even aware that the XXX was ever made at all!

I'll never forget the curt response I got when, as a budding young collector in the early 1980s, I called the company in Old Greenwich Connecticut and, after several pass-arounds, actually ended up on the phone with the President of Electrolux at the time, a Mr. MacMillan -- I believe his first name was Charles.

His response when I asked for information or parts for old machines? "Son, why do you care about those old machines? The're no good. They're worthless. I'll tell you what - I'll send you a brand new machine -- wholesale, shipping included." I declined, feeling greatly offended that he did not understand my interest in their "old worthless junk." Although now I kinda with I had accepted -- as I would have gotten a brand new Silverado wholesale!!

The sheer numbers also don't bear out only 3,000,000 being made. Again - assuming that the XXX was manufactured for 13 years, taking your figure into consideration instead of 17 which, given the wartime years from 1941-45, does make sense. I had never considered that.

Anyway, if the total made was only 3,000,000, that means that approximately 230,000 were made per year. How could that be?

Charles:
Here's another way of looking at it. The model 20 was the companion to the model XXX for three years. So the model XXX was not the only machine sold during that time, but it was the only model sold for eight of those thirteen years.

Looking at it another way, there are just now a million Rainbow e-Series machines. And they've been on the market for eight years now.

The D4 Rainbow model sold for twelve years and they sold 2 million of them.

It's perfectly understandable that Electrolux sold more than 3 but less than 4 million model XXX's. But, I could also be wrong.