One of the RAREST Cylinder Vacuum Cleaners ever! The Electrolux Elite Super Electronic 1000 Z1700

Here’s a rare beast for you, and at time of writing the only one I can find on YouTube. At least by using English search terms :)

The Electrolux Elite series was only sold in the UK for 12 months between 1987 and 1988 although during my research I did find them listed in a mail order catalogue from 1989 and it’s even possible that these machines were catalogue exclusives, but don't quote me on that. Very hard to find much detail online of the UK versions but after some digging, I came up with a huge amount of information on the various versions of this cleaner that were sold in Continental Europe. Here’s a summary of my findings:

There were numerous model numbers of ‘Elite’ cleaners:

Z1700, Z1710, Z1720, Z1730, Z1740

I say ‘Elite’ cleaners as these machines seem to have been branded as Elites as far as I can tell.

There was a Z1600 Elite - possibly an earlier incarnation of the Z1700?

Lots of information found on French and German websites indicating that this was probably a much more popular and long-lived machine in Europe than it was in the UK.

The Electrolux model Z365 - same cleaner, found one manufactured in 1989 online, listed on an online auction site. Auction ended in 2015. Location of the vacuum cleaner was in Estonia! Bizarre cleaner in powder blue with a thick red strip at the rear and purple control pedals. Wow. Pedals in different location to Z1700 Elite, so this may explain the multiple locations of the power switch moulding on our UK Elite's motor unit.

https://www.osta.ee/en/tolmuimeja-ele...

My current feeling is that this range was a Continental Europe focussed machine that Electrolux briefly decided to sell in the UK just before the Lite range of cylinder cleaners were launched in 1989. Possibly as a stop-gap.

In Europe the machine appeared under many brand names including:

Eureka
Excelsior
First Line
Hugin
Leclerc (Reminds me of 'Allo 'Allo - "It is I; Le'Clerc!"
Nogamatic
Paris Rhone
Printemps
Progress
Tornado
Volta

With many different model numbers.

I suspect these names were used in various different European countries and the machine, whilst sharing a chassis with the UK Elite, had many different 'top mouldings' making them sister cleaners.

Even found evidence of this cleaner having been sold in Australia under various different brand names!! A truly international vacuum cleaner.

If you have any information on the Elite that you’d like to share with the community please do so. This is a bit of an enigma cleaner and we need to know more about it.

Thanks ever so much for watching. Please remember to comment, subscribe and like, I love hearing from you all 😊