Guardsman - the inbetweeney line
The first Guardsman cleaners were in the middle 70's, maybe 75 or 76, a Convertible style and a Celebrity canister. Their colors were rich red with chrome trim, and the Convertible's base was polished aluminum.
I think they were probably sold as a high end household line, and for the most part were not too widely available, mainly from Hoover stores and bigger Hoover retailers.
Only the first Guardsman upright had a shakeout bag, the rest used paper type A bags.
The Guardsman line was later absorbed completely into Hoover's commercial line. The square hood upright pictured ran as model U4125, and later model U4313(which is the one pictured) At the end of 1986 the square hood model was discontinued and replaced by a full hood model on a metal chassis with a red cloth bag. The last of the red Guardsman cleaners were made in 1992.
I have the first upright(model # escapes me at the moment) and early U4313, and one of the last ones from about 1991. I'll post a picture tonight.