If I remember correctly...
The Zanussi machines of the 1980s were supposed to spray the load with water and periodically spin-wash.
I always had the impression from the brochures, that the heater was in a tank at floor level, beside the filter, and that the wash solution was pumped up through the top of the tub, down through the drum, into the laundry. The machine would then spin the suds out, back to the heater/filter tank, to be pumped back up again.
Brochures, in my experience, always tell some form of lies. Never the whole truth. Sometimes diagrams are doctored, other times photos depict machines which never make it to the shop floors in that particular guise.