Kasper wrote:

thetypewriterman wrote:

It's a Brother portable !

How can you tell?!

I'm sure that Typewriterman has seen the insides of more typewriters than anyone else here. The cross-brace, platen knobs, and keys are definitely similar to those used by Brother. I would have guessed a Rexina, or even a Halberg, for the same reasons, but it's far more likely that you would find a Brother at the bottom of a river.
 

Kudos sir, kudos...

I picked up a Fleetwood about a month ago and literally brought it back from the dead. It had been pulled from a barn and was in horrendous condition. After a lot of cleaning and a number of mechanical repairs I had to admit that it was growing on me. Ready for a test run, I was pleasantly surprised by its type action, but at the start of the third paragraph there was a loud 'sprong' and that was the end of it; the mainspring had snapped in half and now the machine is lying dormant again. It's worth owning one, and hopefull I'll be able to rig something up to revive this one, because once you've had a taste of the Fleetwood it just doesn't look as ugly anymore.

I've got several candidates for what I consider the ugliest:  The Olivetti Valentine; Royal Princess; IBM Models 1 thru 10,  A and B (especially when they're using carbon ribbon magazines);  Very early Underwood electrics.  This is not an objective point of view here, and they all could have very good pieces of equipment in their midst.  Looks aren't everything. 

Uwe wrote:

My apologies in advance to anyone who might be unfortunate enough to own one of these, but this has to a candidate for the Top Ten list of Ugliest Typers ever designed and built.

Simply stated, the Royal Fleetwood is painful to look at. If its tissue paper box design wasn't already bad enough, someone got the not-so-bright idea to degrade its aesthetics even further by covering it in a faux wood finish. It looks crude. It looks rude. And it should receive a world-wide ban from public appearances.

By an odd coincidence I came upon this post after comparing the Futura 800 to this very machine unfavorably in terms of touch. I bought one for almost nothing with the faux wood grain nearly worn off but pleasant to use - though I take an extra pleasure in using machines which don't look like they should be usable but still work fine. They are survivors.

So if I only wanted to stare at the thing for inspiration for Forbidden Planet Part II I would take the Futura, but if I actually planned to use it I'd take the Fleetwood in a heartbeat. It has the attack and release of a manual typewriter. I picked up a second one which included the transistor radio - only because I had read of this and the eBay photos showed that it was there though the seller apparently did not know about it.