The 9574 was one of those machines exclusive to a certain retailer - typically Currys. This means it was not part of the core range and was rather slung together with some spare parts from older designs (or possibly rejected ideas for current ones) - only in the cosmetic sense, however: the internals were as in the mainstream lineup.

If you'd looked at them in the shop at the time they were being sold you'd quickly have realised they had a bit of a mongrel look about them, usually set off with a lovely cheesy italic font on the fascia. Looking at them now it's not so apparent, I'll admit!

So 9574 isn't so much more top of the range than 9525 - more like the ugly step sister with a couple of extra tricks up her sleeve!

The 9**5 series of machines began production in 1989 as far as I recall from reading service manuals; the 9525 will be from somewhere between 1989 to 1991. After that the front loaders were redesigned to wash 11lbs (5kg) cotton or 6.6lbs (3kg) synthetics with 45l drums. The first of the Aquarius Wash System machines also came onto the market then. Prior to that the capacity was 9lbs cottons and 4lbs synthetics; I'm not sure what the drum volume was but I'd say it was about 40l.

There are those more knowledgable than me who can date Hotpoint (among others) machines by serial number; I'll leave them to chip in if they like!

Small dryers with drop-down doors? Probably the very popular Creda compact in its various incarnations but they'd changed to a side-hinged door early in the 1980s. Bendix and Burco also did drop-down doors on their dryers; again very unlikely to have been on sale as new post-1990.