F. Goodrich sold many
different products including Schwinn bicycles. In one notable conversation with
his marketing team, Frank W. Schwinn said, “I guess you’re going to lose me
that (B. F. Goodrich) account.” At the time B. F. Goodrich had 1700 different locations selling Schwinn bicycles. He also was friends with Alfred Sloan of
General Motors who had developed a single-brand dealership model for selling
cars. He accepted the advice of his younger
managers and the “Authorized Schwinn Dealer” was born.
In the 1940s
he recruited Hollywood and television stars to promote Schwinn as the best
bicycles in the world. The idea of moving towards dedicated bicycle dealers was
reinforced by a visit of Ray Burch and his marketing team to a bike shop in California owned by George Garner that
was selling Schwinn’s like hotcakes. A World War II veteran living in California,
he had purchased a shop that sold a wide variety of products including bicycles. He got tired of selling model airplanes and other
nickel and dime items. The visiting Schwinn
marketing team liked what they saw and took the idea of dedicated Schwinn
dealers back to Chicago to sell to the boss. With a line of quality bicycles and a marketing strategy
fine-tuned to consumer demand in place, during the late 1940s Schwinn was off
and running.
We’ve built our reputation through consistent innovation rooted in authentic cycling. Marc Muller, a young new Schwinn engineer, was given the responsibility schwinn tricycle to head up the project. The Paramount operations were moved to Waterford, Wisconsin, where the Paramount was reborn with a modern factory and workforce.
Only 3 percent of family businesses are still alive and
kicking by the fourth generation (Zellweger, Nason, and Nordvist 2012). Edward
Schwinn, Jr. was a fourth-generation president of a family business. The 1982 film ET (ExtraTerrestrial) illustrates the intensity
of the BMX craze.
So it is better to capture that history before it is too far gone. Jay Pridmore and junior author Jim Hurd have done just that in their book, , a 1996 publication of Motorbooks International, republished in paperback in 2001. If you like Stingrays and Krates (I don’t…don’t get me started!), check out the bicyclehistory.com page abotu them. After the bike-boom of the early 1970’s, Paramount was in a poor state of affairs in regards to competition and advancing technologies. In 1979, Edward R. Schwinn Jr. was made president of the company and promptly closed down all of the Paramount operations until they could be brought up to date.
Upon his arrival in America, Schwinn quickly found work with the Hill Cycle Manufacturing Company and rose readily to the level of plant manager. He managed the plant for two years while he searched for the time, place and money to launch his own venture. This he found with the collaboration of another successful German immigrant, Adolf Arnold. Arnold owned a meat packing plant and was part owner of a local bank. According to Pridmore and Hurd, Arnold invested $75,000 in the venture, and Schwinn offered his expertise. The factory in Hungary was partially successful in producing
the Schwinn Woodlands, but many of the imported bikes had to be warehoused due
to quality issues.
After
being late to the party, Schwinn finally developed a mountain bicycle that
could live up to its reputation. They first rolled out a mountain-style bicycle
in 1982 called the Sidewinder. Sidewinders were nothing more than modified
Schwinn Varsities or Continentals with large tires and regular handlebars.
Schwinn also was slow to embrace this new type of bicycle
emerging from a trend in California. In California, teenagers and pre-teens
were fitting new seats and handlebars on their Stingrays to use them for both
tricks and racing. Schwinn needed a more decisive manager to deal with the
company problems faced during the mid-1970s. Frank V. Schwinn had to decide whether his
company should continue a “Made in America” tradition that had served it well for
several decades. Despite all of these problems, Schwinn
was still a major force in the bicycle industry in the USA throughout the
decade.
There
were some clouds on the horizon, but they would not materialize until much
later. Schwinn in the early 1950s had a 25 percent share of bicycle
sales, a level higher than any other brand. During the ensuing years, competitors
would begin catching up with Schwinn. But with overall bicycle sales increasing,
this was not a problem. Schwinn still increased its sales steadily from around five
hundred thousand bicycles in 1950 to over one million by the late 1960s.
Giant further endeared itself to Schwinn during the strike
by delivering on a promise to pick up the slack in manufacturing capacity. Giant agreed to provide Schwinn with an additional 80 thousand bicycles. By
1984, Giant ratcheted up production to 500 thousand bicycles for Schwinn which
accounted for about two-thirds of Schwinn sales (Crown and Coleman 1996). Another change in the bicycle industry confronting Schwinn
was a mountain bike craze emerging in Marin County, California.