I'll hazard a guess that Frigidaires fall into the same category as other makes you don't see out there much anymore.  Norge is one that comes to mind first and foremost.  They just didn't remain functional or serviceable as long as other brands.

Maytag, Whirlpool/Kenmore and GE machines from that period had much higher reliability and longevity so are currently much easier to find as a result, either as viable machines for regular use or as parts machines to keep a daily driver going.  Indeed, there are still new replacement parts available that can be installed on Kenmore and Whirlpool machines from the mid-50's.

You place your ear against the cabinet at the level of the drain slits hidden around the upper crevice of the washtub.

The roar of water is unmistakable as the water hurls against the metal, and in 15 seconds the tub is empty of visible water.

Yet, the 1140 revolutions per minute still spray water as the centrifuge removes most of the water from the load. The sound of this spray is distinct, and then it becomes a mist.

You can hear this because there is no outer tub in the W O. Only the washtuband the cabinet. This is a rare sensual delight. You almost can't believe it.

The power and the sound are unbelievable.

If you raise your face to the tub you can feel the mist and see the spit of suds as the force makes a whirlwind around the tub's circumference.

The power is startling. There are no rubber tub guards or "spit dams" It's pure wild Frigidaire Spin.

During wash, the rubber pulsator is gentle to your clothing, but the rotary action of the load itself is fast, sometimes furious.

The frigidaire wants a full load, really, so you do not have to be shy. Small loads sometimes go off balance because the only half-full tub fills up during the overflow, so at spin time you have 10 gallons of water flying chaotically around 5 pounds of laundry. A trivial defect unknown to all full load givers.

I love these machines in all of their iterations: Unimatic Pulsamatic, Multimatic, One-Eighteen. Once bitten by the Frigidaire bug, there is no going back.

(not really an ode, but I'm not done)

Some of us will never experience this joy...

Malcolm

Martin they had an extra cam in the timer that had a spring on it that allowed you to set the wash time and after so many minuets the cam would flip and fill would stop and washing would start. The rinse was always a full tub of water. It was a clever feature as most time fill machines you had to start at maximum wash time and reset the wash time after the fill. Even the last Frigid-air solid tub machine did not do this The Agitatub models in the 1970s.

Martin

Believe or not, the white switch is the lid switch, pretty funny safety feature for a machine that spins at 1140 rpms, in that you have to have the lid open all the way till it rests against the switch to cut the power. A washer Boy's dream. Ah the safety features of the 50's

Jim

I don't know what the Ingraham Prayer is either, but if Ben and Eddie know what it is, you can be sure it's interesting or funny.

The MAGIC TIMER affords another cool sound: you can hear the click/ching of the spring John describes and you can see that the end of the wash cycle "makes up"

for the fill. In other words, when you set the washtime at 10, the fill goes on until minute 6, when the pulsation begins. Then the four minutes of "lost" wash time used for the fill is made up during the segment labeled "Wash Time." The notch before the W is for the 1&1/2 minute overflow.

Have to switch servers to get to the library for another pic.

Here is one absolutely beautiful Sales Lit piece for the Frigidaire WO-65 Unimatic.  Yogi on page 8 it explains the wonderful new Select-o-Dial...

Please be advised this .pdf file download is 16mb...

As with many things the engineers that designed the orignal Unimatics got it right the first time as the double deep rinse rinsed out soil, detergent and bleach much better than the later overflow single rinse system did while using less than two additional gallons of water than the overflow rinse used.

All that said there were some problems with rinsing so throughly in the solid tub Unimatics or any washer for that matter. The overflow at the end of the wash period and during the deep rinse removed soap scum and excess suds much better. In a ST washer like the Unimatic when it goes into spin the heavy water goes quickly up and over the edge of the tub, so any thing floating on the surface goes down into the center of the tub and is plastered all over the surface of the clothing where it will remain. This was a problem in hard water areas or where people still used soap that the overflow rinse solved. 

When I got my first Unimatic it was the WO-65-2 which had the later overflow rinse I used it that way for a long time. Then I converted it to the two deep rinse by using an earlier timer and timer dial. The difference in rinsing was amazing as I often used this machine to wash white clothes where I add LCB near the end of the wash period. After rinsing with the overflow rinse you could still smell bleach in the clothes, but after going to the double rinse when you removed the clothing you could not even tell the clothing had been bleached. 

All that said the overflow rinse is much more fun to watch.

Thank you, Ben, I always wonderer about the time frame for the W O family. In 1955, the Frigidaire style changed dramatically and every year thereafter. But the familiar, signature, iconic styling of the W O was around for five years, unchanged except for the red nose reindeer light morphing into a lid switch. So then is this right, the W O was produced from 1950-52? Always got a kick out of the W O being the double rinser, while the W O 2 only rinses once......I know...... know ;-> Wondering if Robert's 49 is also a W O

Andy, according to Gordon, two other guys and me have the 62 LK, while John, Darren, and Gordon have the 64 LK, a cooler prettier machine. People love them because the they are versatile, complex, beautiful, and rare--interesting cycles and of course, they're turquoise.