It costs MORE to make a dryer door that opens down as the hinges and metal have to be stronger plus on most they have to use counterbalance springs. WP usually sent their older tooling to Canada so the Canadian washers and dryers often looked like older US models.

Even very few US dryer manufacturers had hamper doors, Kenmore used them from the start and later WP machines started showing up with them. I know that many customers including myself prefer them as I find it more convenient to load and unload without dropping clean clothing on the floor. I have and have used many dryers that have side-swing doors and I somehow manage to get the clothing in and out of them LOL.

I don't know the exact reason for that but notice that this dryer also has the old style Whirlpool lower panel like many Canadian Inglis washers and dryers had.

I used to have my parent's former 1974 Inglis 'Heavy Duty" dryer and it did have a bottom hinged door and a regular lower panel like US Whirlpools (see picture).

I also prefer this kind of door to the side swing doors as they allow throwing clothes on the door when you remove them from the washer.

Also in installations like this one (and the Kenmores above) where the washer and dryer are reversed from the normal position with the washer on the left, you aren't bothered with the dryer door when loading the dryer from the right.

I had other relatives who had fancier Inglis Royal dryers from the early seventies. These were TOL models with lighted consoles, drums and timer control, they also had adjustable end of cycle buzzer under the lint filter door and something similar to the "Press Saver" feature on Frigidaire 1-18 dryers (I don't know how Whirlpool called it) but the dryer would start for a few seconds every few minutes after the end of the cycle. They had the 1961 Whirlpool style lower panel like this one (note the Kenmore washer has it too!).

George, this one is an Inglis. I gave it to my cousin. My parents bought it new in 1974 with a matching large capacity washer. I think that's the reason why they had the US style lower panel as most other Inglis models (including TOL models) still had 1961 style lower panels and I think they weren't available with large capacity.

I think, tho not positive, that most of these side opening dryer doors are reversible.  At least the few I have owned have been.  A GE, Maytag and a Frigidaire.

All WP Dryers had the small side oping door from 1949-the 1990s on standard capacity models. None of the small side opening doors on WP dryers were ever reversible, GE and MT and Norge dryer doors were also not reversible till the 1990s. Oddly GE and Norge and WP doors always were right hand while MTs were always left hand opening.

It was always odd I thought, for Maytag to put the dryer to left effectively. A lot of their sales literature also shows the dryer to the left of the washer. Around here, there are many town homes built in the early 70's through the 80's and one thing that I notice it that the laundry closets, which were built with the structure, were always setup with the dryer hookups on the left. It's almost like they were made for Maytags. To me the natural order is washer then dryer. You wash the clothes 1st and then pass them along to the dryer. Much like KM/WP that matched the control panels to where the washer and dryer timers were next to each other.

When did Maytag finally give up the left-swing door and go to the norm? Or did they simply solve that my going to the reversible door?

-Tim