USA – A Kelvinator, the nation’s second-oldest continuously used major appliance brand and the first to appear on electric refrigerators, is being retired by Electrolux Appliances.
“In recent years, a full-line of Kelvinator majors was handled only by small independent retailers. As these types of outlets are decreasing in number, sales of the retired by Electrolux Kelvinator line have likewise been declining for several years, prompting the decision to phase out the brand,” an Electrolux spokesperson said.
Retailers who had stocked the Kelvinator brand will be offered the Gibson line, also owned by Electrolux.
The Kelvinator brand originally appeared on the first electric refrigerators marketed for home use in 1914. The brand was named to honor Lord William Kelvin, the English physicist and mathematician who developed an early thermometer and determined the exact temperature reading of absolute zero.
The Nash Motor Co. acquired ownership of the Kelvinator brand in the 1930s, and the company was known for a while as Nash-Kelvinator. The brand was subsequently sold by Nash successor American Motors in the late 1960s to a firm that would become White Consolidated Industries, which was acquired in 1982 by AB Electrolux of Sweden, the brand’s current owner.
The only U.S. appliance brand in longer use is Hotpoint, which was first applied to a line of electric irons in 1903. The third oldest U.S. brand is Frigidaire, in use since 1916 and also owned by Electrolux Appliances.
From AS News