Re: [CR]What else did they build

(Example: Production Builders:Frejus)

From: <SM2501@aol.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 16:19:23 EST
Subject: Re: [CR]What else did they build
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org


Sam-

I would say you are semi correct in your email. Maybe Indian didn't build their own bikes, but they were built to Hendee's specifications. The fenders and chainring were both specific to Indian, not just off the shelf at Westfield. The later rare 1936 Indian were built in limited numbers by AGB in Germany, but the saddle, pedals, tires and other parts were added once they hit our soil. As far as Daytons go, the company that made the Daytons, Harley's, Nationals, Snell among others was the Davis Sewing Machine company. If you look close enough, you will find differences in the frame from a Dayton to a Harley from year to year. There again, the Harley's were built to their specifications, not rebadged Daytons.

Schwinn built bicycles under several names, as did Davis, Shelby, Huffman, Westfield Colson and others.

The same is true to today. There are a few factory's in Taiwan, Japan, China, etc that build bicycles for Trek, Specialized, KHS, Haro and most others. These are built to the buyers specifications, down to the frame materials, geometry and components.

Scott McCaskey

In a message dated 12/22/2005 10:05:34 A.M. Central Standard Time, frameteam2003@yahoo.com writes:

Pope was one of the oldest and largest bicycle makers in America.Pope is Columbia bicycle. Indian didn't build a bicycle---they contracted for the frames they put their name on.Consolidated Of Ohio(Miami brand) built the frames for the Flying Merkel and some early Indians,the rarest Indian bike was a german import and the last were Phillips re-badged bikes.Harley bicycles(1918-1922) were re-badges Daytons(huffman).But in 1922 or23 Huffmann stopped building bicycles,and consentrated on servise station supplys--like the reusable qt. oil bottles with spoute. Consolidated morped into musselman,who also built airplain brakes.Now that's a scary though if you ever used a musselman coaster brake on a bicycle.Somehow Musselman became part of murray of ohio. sam lingo,pleasanton tx Arthur Link <artlink@flash.net> wrote:In the USA Indian built bikes before they built motorcycles.Pope build high end bikes before they built high end cars. Art Link,San Antonio,TX