Ugh
Great article. That's a fascinating strategy for growth and diversification, but it's interesting to note that their strategy consisted of snagging portfolios of products, keeping the most useful designs, and scrapping the rest, while halting R&D.
Think about that--they just acquired designs, facilities, and tooling, but improved very little--VERY little. (Maybe one exception being GM's dreadful dryer in their Skinny-Mini.)
They took what they had, mixed and matched it, and kept pumping out the same stuff that was decades old, with no innovation. In fact, quality declined for the most part, because things became thinner/cheaper/chintzier. The only good thing I can say about their contributions to D&M were polypropylene tubs, which D&M really needed, given their porcelain. That extruded console from the 1-18s hung around well into the nineties.
Appliance Borg, they were. One of the original offshorers, too, but it's interesting to note that Sears nudged them in that direction to begin with--and in many ways, Wal-Mart nowadays is only reading from the Sears playbook. There's so much history, even back then--and even with the nostalgia we have for the older players.
These ads were from when they tried to enhance marketing to bring their brands to the foreground. I'm not sure they were successful; most WCI stuff was badge-engineered and builder's grade when I was a kid. You didn't go to a dealer asking for it, that's for sure--unless you wanted a front-loader.
I had this washer, in the BOL form. It was a really good machine, but you could see the slow process of tinkering to kind-of improve quality--the cabinet was thin and the lid hinges rusted through; they subscribed to Westinghouse's philosophy of "porcelain nothing but the tub." The plastic outer tub was probably an improvement, but other things plagued this machine--leaks, chewed belts (the machine clutched off a tiny and thin V-belt, and it forever smelled slightly of burnt rubber when spinning), and so on.
It was a good performer, and lots of fun to watch. And, WCI did share that gene with D&M where they certainly could style the bejesus out of things. It's just the substance that was lacking.
In short--you got what you paid for.
