WHY FRIGIDARE APPLIANCES WENT AWAY
Peter maybe when WCI agreed to buy they thought that they would continue the GM appliance designs [ I don't believe they did want to continue them ] but they soon came to thier senses and canned them. For many of the good reasons listed here , high wage costs, old out moded factories, very expensive machines to build that required a lot of engineering expertise to make work. I would wager that GE or WP would have had trouble making the 1-18 washer work and MT would never been able to make such a highly engineered design work.
All the companies that WCI bought were in trouble, yes they all made some very good products at one time, but none would likely have survived on thier own much longer.
Westinghouse was a very big brand for builders in the Washington DC area in the 1950s-in to the 1960s, but thier appliances delovoped such a crappy reputation by the end of the 1960s and into the early 1970s that builders often found it harder to sell new houses when people saw the WH labels on the new kitchen appliances. Levett built over 30,000 new houses here in Prince George's Co. Maryland from 1959-1974-5. They used all WH appliances till about 1963-4 when they switched to GE as GE had much better Electric cooking appliances and laundry at that time to say nothing of the great GE refrigerators that were built in the 1960s.
I remember when WCI said that they would bury WP and other US appliance companies in the early 1980s, and we just laughed. Now even though I still feel that thier new\ appliances are still a cut below WPs and GEs they have become number 2 or 3 in the US appliance market and are making money. I hate to admit it but thier strategy seems to have worked.
Peter maybe when WCI agreed to buy they thought that they would continue the GM appliance designs [ I don't believe they did want to continue them ] but they soon came to thier senses and canned them. For many of the good reasons listed here , high wage costs, old out moded factories, very expensive machines to build that required a lot of engineering expertise to make work. I would wager that GE or WP would have had trouble making the 1-18 washer work and MT would never been able to make such a highly engineered design work.
All the companies that WCI bought were in trouble, yes they all made some very good products at one time, but none would likely have survived on thier own much longer.
Westinghouse was a very big brand for builders in the Washington DC area in the 1950s-in to the 1960s, but thier appliances delovoped such a crappy reputation by the end of the 1960s and into the early 1970s that builders often found it harder to sell new houses when people saw the WH labels on the new kitchen appliances. Levett built over 30,000 new houses here in Prince George's Co. Maryland from 1959-1974-5. They used all WH appliances till about 1963-4 when they switched to GE as GE had much better Electric cooking appliances and laundry at that time to say nothing of the great GE refrigerators that were built in the 1960s.
I remember when WCI said that they would bury WP and other US appliance companies in the early 1980s, and we just laughed. Now even though I still feel that thier new\ appliances are still a cut below WPs and GEs they have become number 2 or 3 in the US appliance market and are making money. I hate to admit it but thier strategy seems to have worked.