Strange / obscure fridge files...RCA. Who knew?

[philr]

In Canada, there were still some Whirlpool clone appliances that were branded RCA in the mid-seventies. But later, just like in the US, they were GE clones. There were also RCA dishwashers that were Westinghouse but I never got how that happened. My aunt had an RCA dishwasher that looked just like an early/mid seventies Whirlpool. The first picture shows the Westinghouse clone dishwasher. I still need to find a RCA-badged Whirpool clone dishwasher from the 1970s like my aunt had...

 

[brib68]

RCA

Waaaayyyyy back in the day, RCA had a home appliance line called Estate, which they sold off to Whirlpool in the 50s. part of the deal gave Whirlpool the rights to market their appliances as RCA-Whirlpool through the mid-60s.

In the mid-80s GE bought RCA (GE and Westinghouse had originally had ownership interest in RCA, but the DOJ broke it up in the 30s, due to anti-trust concerns). GE also used the RCA name as a second-line of appliances, either a 'discount' label or a 'control' label to give a small retailer a recognizable brand that was 'unique'--that is, not sold at Sears/Fretter/Silo/etc.--and therefore enabling a small store to not have to have a competitive product without having the customer get all the good sales attention and then go to the mall where the same model is being sold for way less with no customer service.

Estate, of course, is Whirlpool's lower-end line now. And Inglis is Best Buy's 'exclusive' line from Whirlpool, the way Siemens is Best Buy's label from Bosch.