I would like to add that by the early 1970s, the bike boom had taken off and Raleigh UK did not have the manufacturing capacity to keep up with worldwide demand.
This is why manufacturing had to be "offshored" to plants in foreign countries including India and competitors were gobbled up - Raleigh sales had exceeded their Raleigh UK plants abilities to keep up with market demand...
As the bike boom curtailed, Raleigh UK was left with aging plants, declining market demand, and an inability to "modernize" its infrastructure and product lines as labor union troubles mounted. This was not a good time to buy up competitor bike companies, so Raleigh UK experimented with franchising the Raleigh brand name to Huffman Bicycles in the USA for increased sales in a declining market.
The 1980s BMX craze left no "upgrade path" for BMX users to higher end Raleigh 531 and 753 frames. Raleigh high priced bikes were not able to compete on a price basis with mass market BMX producers such as Huffy or Murray. Raleigh could not obtain shelf space in the worlds largest market - the USA - nor in Wal-mart nor at other mass merchandise retailers.
As I mentioned in an earlier CR post with a marketing case study about Huffy, the President of Huffy at that time was interviewed and had to terminate the Raleigh franchise in the mid1980s because far more profit and revenue came from BMX and lower end bikes. In fact, Wal-Mart asked Huffy for a large order of "loss-leader" bikes that stripped manufacturing capacity from Raleigh frames made in the USA. This is when Huffy briefly experimented with manufacturing in the Asian market and eventually resigned the Raleigh USA franchise.
In the late 1980s, TI Investments sold the Raleigh International company to Derby Investments in the USA that later sold off Raleigh in the late 1990s to a small USA investors group that made Reynolds carbon frames.
All these problems eventually contributed to the decline and fall of the Raleigh empire.
Regards, Steve Neago
Cincinnati, OH
<classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 9:33 AM Subject: Re: [CR]Raleigh Buying Up Their Betters
>
>
> Original Message:
> -----------------
> From: richardsachs@juno.com
> Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 12:35:09 GMT
> To: joebz@optonline.net, classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: Re: [CR]Brit v Italian bikes
>
>
>
> Joe B-Z wrote:
> "But the most evil thing that Raleigh did was to buy up the better
> competition like BSA, first whore the name out in their own country, and
> then subject it to further groveling in India. I think you could still buy
> a BSA in India today."
>
>
> it wasn't evil if you were a shareholder!
> <g>
>
> Actually this is often overstated methinks... Raleigh gobbling up everyone
> else to ensure primacy for their inferior product.
>
> In fact, Raleigh only bought up Humber (1933), Rudge-Whitworth (1944),
> Triumph (1954?) and finally BSA-Sunbeam-New Hudson in 1957. It looks like
> BSA did some of their own "gobbling" before that!! Ask Sunbeam
enthusiasts!
>
> What gets confused so often is that Raleigh itself was bought out in 1961
> by Tube Investments which owned British Cycle Corp makers of Phillips,
> Hercules, Sun, and most of the other manufacturers except Dawes and
> Elswick-Hooper. TI were smart: they bought the company but they kept
> Raleigh's superior management and marketing, better known name and most
> importantly got their huge (really too big even by then) Nottingham plant.
>
> Of course BSA had an outstanding lightweight line... they were, I think,
> better regarded by clubmen than any of the big manufacturers. In their
> days, the Gold Vase and the Tour of Britain models were top of the heap
for
> those who couldn't afford the fancy handbuilt jobs. BSA offered the more
> desirable (even then) Cyclo-Benelux gears where Raleigh remained devoted
> (too long) to Sturmey-Archer hubs gears since, of course, they owned them
> too. BSA are well known in the USA since they supplied most of the
> lightweight, racing and track bike fittings from the early 1930s onwards.
> After Raleigh got BSA, it all just fizzled out.
>
> And yes.. it WAS sad to see BSA and Sunbeam at the end, their once
renowned
> names stuck on kiddie trikes and low-end juvenile bikes.
>
> Peter Kohler
> Washington DC USA
>
>
>
>
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