A Toast Set
Great looking pair Scott, I always liked the warm toast color and the hi-tech platinum colors when they were introduced. When we did our kitchen in 1987 I used the platinum color for all the Formica cabinet doors and two walls are painted Toast.
A lot of market research went into the introduction of these colors in the early 80s as harvest cold and avocado were losing appeal and customers and manufactures were looking for replacement colors. Unfortunately a number of things conspired to keep these colors from ever getting popular.
1 Independent appliance dealers and distributors were tried of stocking the same appliances in three or more colors.
2 The Reagan induced recession of the early 80s caused a slowdown in sales and a general belt-tightening for dealers and consumers alike.
3 Whirlpool and GE were not getting along and even though all American appliance manufactures agreed in 1976 when almond was introduced to all use the same shades of the different colors offered so consumers could buy their appliances from different manufactures and have them match, this did not happen this time. So even though there was a general agreement that these two colors would be popular with consumers, GEs new colors did not match WPs, GE introduced Sand as their version of Toast and Silver as their version of Platinum and they DID NOT match.
4 This mismatch between WP and GEs colors caused most manufactures to just sit out these NEW colors, no Toast MTs, KAs etc.
And lastly consumers were a little leery of buying colored appliances because of the past two decades of appliance colors and their experiences of trying to buy or replace an appliance and get something that would match what they already had, and that is how we got stuck with all these boring white and cold Stainless Steel appliances.
Hi Scott, it was good meeting you at Martins last week and if you would ever like to make it a threesome in your laundry room I have a Toast TOL KM DD Triple Dispenser washer that needs a new home and would look in your lineup.
John L.