I found this online while searching photos of the Hoover Vortex.

www.vdta.com/Magazines/OCT13/fc-G...

I am not naming who wrote this because it is printed on the article, but I must say, it is very poorly thought out and slightly untrue. I feel that it was written with bad judgement and prejudiced towards the product.

I believe some parts of the Vortex were copied such as the clear bin and the shroud, however, Hoovers Cyclone was NOTHING like the Dyson's cyclone, the Hoover has a triple cyclone, which from my experience worked better than the Dyson at separating the finer dust.

Hoover certainly did not copy the styling, it looked nothing like the Dyosn.

Good god, there's a lot of inaccuracies in that.

Just a few years earlier, they advertised a FREE Airline Ticket, to any destination, IF you bought a new Hoover. The problem was, they failed to place a price limit on the model you purchased

 

Wrong. There were 2 phases of the Free Flights promotion - the first to selected European destinations (which was a huge succcess) and second to either New York or Florida. Hoover specified the destination. Also, you had to spend £99 or more on ANY Hoover product, it was not restricted to vacuum cleaners and it did have a price limit.

The Hoover company responsibile for the free flights fiasco and the Hoover company behind the Vortex are 2 completely different, totally unrelated companies. Hoover Europe had long since been sold to Candy by the time the Vortex was even in development.

The very first Hoover Dual Cyclonic vacuum cleaner, the Triple Vortex, in stunning candy apple red

 

Wrong. The very first Hoover Vortex was white with red writing for the TOL and white with black writing for the entry model. The red Vortex and blue Vortex Power were modified versions of the original Triple Vortex and were brought out after the law suit.

At about 2/3 the price of a Dyson, it was an instant hit. People who thought the Dyson "too expensive" bought the Hoover. Hoover launched a huge sales and marketing campaign throughout Europe.

Again, completely not true. The Vortex was in direct competition with Dyson and retailed for near enough the same price. I seem to recall the entry model being £199 and the higher end model with the cord rewind was £229 - the same price range as the DC01 and DC04 of the time. The Vortex also never matched the sales of the Dyson cleaners as Hoover's reputation was in tatters already. Free flights and the Candy takeover were still fresh in people's minds.

People wanting cheaper, bagless cleaners were buying Electrolux "The Boss" cleaners and Panasonic uprights which had been modified to fit a single, low efficiency cyclones to compete in the bagless market. Plus, bagged cleaners still far out-numbered bagless at the time, at least in terms of choice anyway.

I'm also 99% certain that the Vortex was UK specific, and never launched across Europe. The mainland European market is dominated by cylinders and I think only the Discovery bagless cylinder from that era was available in most European countries.

Hoover's cleaner was plagued with motor problems due to the fine dust leakage through their imperfect copy of Dyson's cyclones. Low airflow, high motor temperature, and a very dusty exhaust stream killed the machine within months of purchase.

 

This is partly true. There were issues with the cyclone letting very fine dust through the motor, which did cause a lot of problems, but this was caused by ineffective filters (or rather, no filter at all!) rather than the cyclone itself. Dyson had opted for disposable filters on the DC01 and early 04's, but the original Vortex had a totally different set up, with only a sort of mesh thing to hold the dust in. The idea behind the triple vortex was that the dust would continue to constantly recirculate through the cyclones and never reach the motor (in a similar to way to the Dyson Cinnetic...funny that!) and in testing, it worked very well. However, in reality, when it came to actual household dirt, it just couldn't cope.

This was modified on the later red Vortex and Vortex Power, which had the big sponge washable filters like the later Dyson DC04 and a modified cyclone design.

Immediately, his law team was on the case

Not quite. The Vortex was on sale a good year before the lawsuit. Infact, the original Vortex cleaners are in the Argos 2001 catalogue, so it was at least 2 years before they disappeared completely.

The Triple Vortex model was pulled from the market, and a filter fitted to the inside of the clear bin. Making the Triple Vortex, a single Vortex machine

Again, this is only partialy true. This did happen, but not until much longer after the law suit. Hoover modified the Vortex to a different dual cyclone design that didn't infringe on Dyson's patent. This was when the different coloured machines came out - there was a black entry level model, red mid-range and blue TOL "Vortex Power". These were again high end, pricey machines directly competing with Dyson. It wasn't until a few years later that the Vortex style was converted to a single cyclone machine, but it was also rebadged as "Hurricane" and the price dropped massively to around £120.

The Vortex may have had it's issues, but in use, it was actually a much better performer than the DC01 - stronger hose suction, better brushroll, far more user-friendly tool set up and easier to empty. It also looked like a much more "traditional" style of vacuum compared to the DC01 and DC03, which I recall a lot of people thought were quite ugly at the time.

One thing that did boost sales of the Vortex was that it was sold in Supermarkets - I remember Tesco and Asda both stocked them. So this meant that you could pick up a new vacuum whilst you were out doing your weekly shopping and didn't have the inconvenience of trecking to an electrical shop.

Courtesy of Roger, here is a picture of the ORIGINAL triple Vortex. This was the TOL and had cord rewind.

This is the Vortex Power that was also dual cyclonic, but a modified design.

And courtesy of Mark, here are the later models, branded "Hurricane", "Cyclone" and "Cyclean"

Advert for the original Vortex

but in the end, it was the testimony from James Dyson himself (who had invented the concept of dual cyclonic dust separation) that WON the case for Dyson

Another error. James Dyson did not invent the concept of dual cyclonic dust separation at all. Infact, cyclonic seperation had been in use for years in huge suction machines in saw mills as a way of filtering out as much dust as possible from the air to improve working conditions. Dyson witnessed this and was inspired to use the same concept but in a much smaller form in a vacuum cleaner.

Now, if you want to talk diasterous Hoover cleaners, let's talk about "The One", shall we?

Here is the Vortex Power from a catalogue of the time. As you can see, this no longer has the "triple Vortex" filterless design, but has a washable S class filter instead.

The TOL Vortex at the time of release was the V2001 in red, which was just a V2000 but with an S Class Filter. This was available at the same time as the original V2000 and the V1500 I think it was.

I agree this article is terribly composed and one-sided. Of course, lest we forget that Mr Dyson is the biggest hypocrite in this case. He was 'so shocked' to see that someone had copied his idea, but did Mr Dyson come up with that idea WITHOUT copying anyone? No he didn't. He copied the system in a sawmill, so he is the copycat in all of this.

Hi Jacob,

The red Vortex didn't come out until later on, at the same time as blue Vortex Power above. This was after the lawsuit. The original Vortex had no filters at all, bar a little mesh thing, and was intended to have minimal maintenace, which was a big selling point in comparison to Dyson's disposable filters.

The S class filters weren't added until after the law suit and after Hoover had modified the design.

I'm sorry but I disagree with you. The red one was an upgrade of the white one, and they were available at the same time.

Here is a scan from sebo_fan's 1999-2000 catalogue that shows both of them sold together.

I can only assume that the red S class model was introduced later on the back of leaking issues as it definitely wasn't part of the original line up (trust me, I was there!).

I remember Currys doing a huge promotion on these at the time and had a massive display about it. They had the basic white model with black writing and the TOL white with red writing model, the only difference between the 2 being the cord rewind.

Funnily enough, thinking about it, the Vortex Power was actually more like the Dyson design. I believe it removed a layer of the triple Vortex system and added a filter. Oh the irony.

Thanks for sharing that pic though Jacob - makes another point I mentioned earlier. At £259, it was MORE expensive than a Dyson of the time (although that's from a mail order catalogue which was usually slightly higher priced anyway).

I cannot argue with you considering you were there, so there you are.

The only question I have from your response is if it was introduced to solve the filter issues, then why is it for sale at the same time as the white one?

That's a good question, but I can't answer it lol. Maybe Candy figured that the leaking issue wasn't really an issue, so continued to sell both? If people complained about leaking, they could offer an upgrade to the filter model? Just hazzarding a guess there to be honest, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Fair enough. I just thought that they'd offered a slightly higher spec model for Allergy sufferers like they did with the S Class Purepower, or it could be to try to compete with Dyson's Absolute range.

I was quite surprised to be honest, Jamie, Tom is very knowledgable and knows his stuff. I guess maybe people shouldn't write articles about markets that they were never a part of.

It is not correct and he shouldn't be passing false judgement on cleaners that were not sold or marketed in the US and had nothing to do with US Hoover.

And yes, I could of written a better article, considering I appear to know more about Hoover UK when it comes to OUR products! In a way, I am slightly offended by this article.

perhaps, "Angered" would of been a better choice of words.

Why study what I said so critically? and not just take it with a pinch of salt?

I won't loose sleep over it. I guess if you like something and it was a part of your community and someone from outside that community salters it, incorrectly, I would have reason to feel annoyed, surely?

You just judged me.

I didn't say it out of the blue, that I could right a better article, I was responding to another member.

I am not truly angry or offended, I was using it in a rhetorical fashion.

I notice, you use your age to belittle the younger generation here, I am 21, how stupid do you think I am.

My point exactly.

like I said, pinch of salt.

I was not trying to prove anything! I was talking from MY EXPERIENCE. I have owned many early Dyson Cleaners and used the ones I haven't owned, I have also owned a Hoover Vortex and from my experience, less dust build up was found on the filter. I never said I was proving anything or saying anything scientifically.

Why do I need to say what is wrong with it, I was just commenting on how badly written it was, in any case, another member, corrected it anyway.

There were which reports available at the time that rated the Vortex a better performer to the Dyson, I do believe. Don't quote me on that.

Oh, I'm sorry, what have we been doing for the previous 34 posts?

You also seem to be forgetting that some of us were actually around and in the same country as this particular cleaner when it was launched and quite clearly remember the launch, successes, failures, pro's, con's and of course the well publicised law suit.

Read the whole thread and watch the video that Roger has linked to.

Whilst I don't agree with Alex on certain points, credit where credit is due, he is drawing on his own experience of using this particular cleaner in his home and comparing that with other cleaners used in the same environment for the same job - I can't say fairer than that.

Have any of you guys taken the time to read the testimony from the Dyson/Hoover lawsuit?

One should yield his own advise, perhaps the "facts" written down the first time would of been correct. We all make mistakes, but if you are going to publicly post something, surely one would double check his work before publishing.

maybe we wouldn't be here now, doing this.

Yeah, thanks Tom, for sharing, I believe I will find this article in the fictional section? Just encase I need to refer back to this in the future, :)

The Vortex system is nothing like the Dysons lol, the Dyson just had a cone.

I have learnt so much about Hoover UK thanks to Roger, since his YouTube channel, "ibaisaic" started and he has taken the time to upload videos and detailed written posts elsewhere about the company and its history, not to mention the brochures, catalogue scans and experiences with the actual cleaners that I have had in the country they were marked, sold and I grew up in!

I am a big Hoover collector and like to think I know what I am talking about, when it comes to Hoover UK, of course I don't know everything and don't claim to.

When you are going to post something for the public to see, you must do it professionally and have the facts right. To me, I can't really take the article seriously, I feel it was all a bit bitter. Just my opinion.

Despite everything I say and how much of a Hoover fan I am, I do know they have pros and cons, unlike some collectors (I am not being suggestive here, I am just saying).  I am not actually Biased towards Hoover's, I just love the company, cleaners and the legacy/heritage of the company...Bare in mine, there would be no Dyson if it wasn't for Hoover!!

I do really like Dyson's. I don't agree with everything the chief executive of the company (James) has to say, but I feel he has made some good products over the years and I own and have used quite a few examples of them, his latest machines are better than ever.

In the case of Dyson and Hoover at the end of the century...All facts aside, this is my opinion now, I believe James took Hoover to court, not really anything to do with the product, I think he sued them out of spite and greed.

What James said about Hoover turning him down in the early 90s and a lot of you are forgetting...That statement was pretty irrelevant, because the Hoover that brought out the Vortex was not the Hoover that told James to get on his bike, with his technology!

Alex.

Yes, we know, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a fixed case!