I believe Schwinn was still mainly buying European components in the early 70s. What I find interesting is that Shimano did not private label their parts until its relationship with Schwinn(and I am not sure they did it for anyone else,ever) Remember Schwinn was the giant and Shimano was probably looking at brakes and hubs and dérailleurs for a lot of bikes. Suntour did brand for us(VISTA) in probably 1973/74. Suntour was limited to what it could provide so builder/assemblers had to deal with many small companies.Shimano was a one stop shop which made bike specifying very simple. I recall the World bikes(Sport,LeTour etc) as being mixed with Shimano dérailleurs but Diacompe brakes. The Voyager was not a Panasonic/Miyata bike but was contract built by an assembler (we used the same one before switching to ARAYA) Lots of what went on was directly under the control of the various trading companies who controlled all bike and component production. Not all of them were equal. .Yagami who we used might have been the strongest (I wounder if Schwinn used them also?) The Trading Company system may have broken down by the late 70s , does anyone know definitively? I recall there were 7 major ones
BOB FREITAS
chilly MILL VALLEY, CA USA