Here's a rare bird -- an XXX fitted with an after-market bag chamber to take standard throw-away paper bags.

Yes, it's odd-looking; yes, it totally spoils the look of the XXX; but yes, it's a genuine Electrolux product; and, yes, it's quite hard to find.

I'm not sure exactly when it was introduced but I'd presume it was some time during the run of the LX due to its hammertone blue color and the sideways orientation. I'd think if it came later, it would have been oriented vertically as all Electrolux bag chambers were until the 1205.

I have two of them and have only seen a couple more over the years. I'd be tempted to get it myself just because of its obscurity but, really now ... I did make a pledge to myself not to snap up a bunch of stuff that I'd only end up crying over later when I have to toss it. So I hope someone will get it. The price is reasonable, there are no bids so far, and there are two days left on it.

Unfortunately I'm not in a position to get it, but it makes me wonder why such an add-on was/is rare. I assume the XXX was a huge seller, and a lot of them remained in use throughout the runs of the subsequent cleaners, so you might think the average owner might have wanted the upgrade to make the machine "more functional". Perhaps they liked the cloth bags and didn't want to change? Perhaps they upgraded to a lighter, paper-bag machine, and the XXX was taken out of service, or used as a second vacuum? Who knows, but Electrolux speculation is always fun.

P.S. I actually don't really mind the old cloth shake-out bags. When I use the 30 + 50 series (and I do, on a semi-regular basis, for actual cleaning), I don't mind dumping the bag into the garbage, or even the slightly musty old smell. Perhaps not the healthiest option in today's HEPA-filtered world, but vacuuming, for me, has to have that emotional, fun element to it as well.

Amazingly enough, there currently are TWO Model XXXs with the upgraded bag chamber on eBay!! This is really freaky!!

In both cases, they are after-market retrofits. For a very short time, Electrolux did sell XXXs with the new bag chamber as standard equipment. That was during the very last run of the LXI when XXXs were sold as a lower-tier model. Those XXXs are all blue, hammertone blue rear collar, blue leatherette in the same style as the LX, and a blue under-carriage - ditto. The earlier XXXs have gray "snakeskin style" leatherette and dark gray under-carriages. (There's also an all-blue version of the XXX that has the original-style cover, but it's painted hammertone blue.)

Why are these replacement bag systems so rare? Not sure -- maybe many people did not want them because they didn't want to pay for disposable bags. Or maybe because they thought the things were butt-ugly, which they are! They're plain, purely functional with no thought whatsoever to form or design. And they totally ruin the streamlined appearance of the machine.

Below is a photo of an all-original late XXX [except for the go-kart -- that is a genuine Electrolux product but was an optional add-on], and then the link is to the other retrofitted version on eBay.

And here's the late XXX in all blue with the standard cover. Pretty, isn't it! One of my aunts had this model. And I now have it. It's the OTHER vacuum cleaner I now have from my childhood!

The blue XXX is nice, but I like the gray one much better. It seems strange to think of the XXX as being a lower-tier model when the LXI came out, even though the LXI was more advanced. The XXX is such an iconic model.

I believe the very last of the old style Canadian Electroluxes, the model 57, came with disposable bags, but I don't think they were style C. I've never seen this particular machine (the 57 I have has a cloth bag), nor have I seen the bags that came with it.

P.S. Reading Electrolux threads on this site always makes me break out the matching, or comparable, machine, and clean with it . Right after I read this thread the first time, I got out the blue model 55, vacuumed with it, and then emptied out the cloth bag.