KitchenAid Tilt-Head Stand Mixer

The KitchenAid tilt-head mixer is a heavy electric stand mixer with a body of die-cast metal. A curved pillar rises from an oval base and carries a long, rounded motor head that hinges backwards to lift the beater out of the bowl. The bowl, of polished steel, locks onto a plate on the base. A small lever sets the speed, and on the nose of the head a round cap covers the hub that drives attachments.

The machine descends from Hobart's industrial mixers, which were standard on United States Navy ships by 1917. The first machine named KitchenAid followed in 1918. In the 1930s, facing rival makers, Hobart hired Egmont Arens, an editor and industrial designer, to make a cheaper and lighter mixer. His Model K, dated by KitchenAid and the press to 1937, gave the mixer the streamlined profile it still has. Its beater moved with what the advertisements called planetary, double-turning action.

The Model K sold from Troy, Ohio, in 1939 at $29.95. Production stopped during the Second World War and resumed in 1946 at Greenville, Ohio, where every KitchenAid stand mixer is still assembled. Colours arrived in 1955. In 1962 the Model K became the K45, the number the four-and-a-half-quart tilt-head mixer still carries. Attachments made in the 1930s still fit the hub of a new machine.

The model shown here is the Classic 5K45SS, sold in Britain with a 4.3-litre bowl, ten speeds, a flat beater, a whisk and a dough hook. Writing in 2024, The Atlantic observed that a new KitchenAid looks much like the 1937 Model K: the same zinc base, enamel finish, arched head and capped hub. The shape is now a registered trademark, and in 1997 the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art chose the mixer as an icon of American design.