One other feature that sets this apart from the first AMP (could M stand for Maytag?)is that instead of the free moving chromed brass float for measuring the water level, this model has a rubber diaphragm across the top of the agitator & that was attached to the chrome cap. There was a circular button on the inside of the chrome cap that snapped into a circle with a raised molding around it on top of the diaphragm. When you had to take the cap and diaphragm off of the agitator, Maytag instructions for reassembling it said to fill the inside of the agitator with ice cubes to hold the diaphragm up so that the chrome cap could be snapped back to it. I do feel bad about pulling the cap loose from the diaphragm on the Maytag at a friend's house. He was with me and saw me do it and said that he didn't think you were supposed to pull up on the cap, just as it popped off. I pushed it back down and we left. Luckily, the washer was in a untility room off the carport, so if it floded, it ran out under the door instead of in the house. I don't know if I was ever blamed for it. My parents never got a call.
Lots of houses in our 50s neighborhood did not have basements. The furnace was in the crawl space which was often wet so the furnaces rusted out early. The gas water heater was in a little brick room often, but not always attached to the house and had a door that usually opened onto the carport. Many times in mild weather when I walked to elementary school, the people would be doing laundry and have the door open. I could look in and see their washer or, in some cases where the washer was in the kitchen, the dryer would be out there. Later when I had a paper route, I had reason to go up to people's houses to collect and would go to the back door which opened onto the carport to check out the appliance situation in the kitchen as well as the utility room. Saturday mornings were good times to catch the machines in action. One ancient widower had one of the original Frigidaire washers. One thing people learned early and not inexpensively was that if very cold temperatures were predicted, you had to leave a 150 watt flood or spot light on behind the washer, near the floor to keep the pump and fill valves from freezing.