Don Buska

I'm interested in what bikes might have been sold in the U.S.A. that came standard with the mid-1960's Suntour Gran-Prix or Competition rear derailleurs? I know Fuji was a big user of Suntour components and prior to 1970 they did sell some bikes in the states under the Sears or Montgomery Wards name plates. Has anyone encountered a bike delivered with one of these pictured derailleurs?



BTW, these were the first two slant-parallelogram derailleurs commercially sold in the mid-60's.

bulldog1935

I perused this website - The catalogs of Japanese vintage bicycle
and found the bikes below
Found Many more examples of Suntour Skitter, and most high-grade Japanese bikes used French derailleurs.

Bridgestone Diamond Randonneur 10 - Suntour Competition, 1967

of course a Japanese bike of this high grade would not have been imported in the 60s, but I bet we're looking for Bridgestones.

This 1964 Wander Vogel looks promising, but unfortunately it only says "domestic parts"


Holks R-popular 1965, Suntour Competition..................................................+ Holks RS6 Club model


Interesting, Toei in 1965 used Toei-made derailleurs...
Everything I could derive from this one site, but it was fun

found a closed listing for Kokusai American Eagle on ebay claiming 60s , but it really looks 70s with SunTour V

likewise, can find Free Spirit and Open Road with both Crane and VGT derailleurs, but these are from the early 70s

The Golden Boy 

As I recall (posting without being relatively certain is dangerous) that American Eagle was the brand that became Nishiki- and that was started around 73. IIRC...

bulldog1935

Thanks, makes perfect since.
Sounds like we're looking for imported and remarked Bridgestones from the mid-60s on.

Don Buska

Some good information so far - thanks. I don't think I've even come across a pre-1970 Bridgestone 10-Speed around here. Albeit, can't say I was really looking for one though. All my web searches about Bridgestone bikes don't show much presence in the USA until around 1980 - were they even sold under their name here in the 60's? My guess these dérailleurs would be on one of the Big Store rebranded 10-Speeds from that 1965-1969 time frame. Those at least would have had a relatively higher sales count here in the states. Once the Suntour V-series replaced these two models I doubt you would have ever seen then on a new bike again. That Skitter is an exception. It started off as a non-slant parallelogram dérailleur and then got converted to one in later generations. Being primarily a stamped metal dérailleur it would have been used on really low end bikes even into the V-series era. I thought about seeing if I could find any Sears or Wards catalogs from the mid to late 60's time frame and have a look at their 10-speeds. However, the ads probably wouldn't provide details on the dérailleur makers or model. At least one could hopefully tell if it was a Suntour by simply seeing if it's primarily horizontal in its mount indicating a slant parallelogram design and not a Simplex, Huret or Shimano brand.

I'm hoping that one of the collectors on this forum has an original 10-speed from this late 60's era with the aforementioned dérailleurs installed. That would then provide me with a store or name to start looking into further.

T-Mar

You don't see very many of the early SunTour slant parallelogram models in the USA as they had been replaced by the Honor and V variants by the time that the bicycle boom attracted the Japanese manufacturers to the American market. Most of the dozen or so that I have seen were Japanese domestic models brought to the USA by military personnel who had served at bases in Japan during the mid-1960s. The last one that I saw was a Katakura Silk and even that was a few years ago.

T-Mar

Bridgestone had a large US market presence in the mid-1970s, under the Kabuki and C. Itoh brands. C. Itoh was a Japanese trading company that imported bicycles and other products. During the early 1970s, most of the Japanese bicycle companies imported to the USA via their trading company partners, most of whom already had distribution networks in America. After the boom crashed, many of the Japanese bicycle manufacturers started setting up eponymous sales and distribution divisions in the USA. Bridgestone did this in the early 1980s, using the Bridgestone brand name for bicycles. C. Itoh retained the Kabuki brand and continued to market them in the USA under a Kabuki bicycle division. Occasionally, you see a 1960s Bridgestone.

3speedslow

Although not badged Bridgestone, they certainly were over here before the 80's. Schwinn saw to that. My 76 Le Tour II is Bridgestone made. Shimano equipped...

noglider 

Were Japanese bikes imported to the US before 1970?
@bulldog1935, you posted web pages as images, which is why they don't display.

bulldog1935

curious, I see them just fine - must be from the computer cache - they also list as .jpg, which will usually post

These links are copied directly from the images I see in my post

https://cyclespeugeot.web.fc2.com/cat...bsdrn15_01.jpg

https://cyclespeugeot.web.fc2.com/cat.../wv1964_07.jpg

https://cyclespeugeot.web.fc2.com/cat...65/holks_3.jpg

https://cyclespeugeot.web.fc2.com/cat...65/holks_5.jpg

I actually posted jpg as images, not html web pages

Don Buska

[QUOTE=T-Mar;19265971 C. Itoh was a Japanese trading company that imported bicycles and other products. [/QUOTE]

Being from the electronics industry I worked for a Japanese company from 1984-2006. All our early computer terminals and several printer makes were from C. Itoh. It wasn't until later when I got into the vintage bikes that I found my first C. Itoh bikes on Craigs List Their bikes were always interesting. Low-mid range stuff usually.

If I ever build up a no-name junker frame 60's based 10-speed maybe I'll opt for using one of these dérailleurs on it just for grins.

Don Buska

Oh wouldn't it be nice to have any of those old Japanese bikes in your links. The Japanese have always been very good about recycling so most of these have been melted down years ago. Since bike is a major mode of transport there I'm sure if any survived they'd be well worn! Albeit there are some really nice Japanese bike collector websites out there.

I do know a guy in town that concentrates more on the really vintage stuff, before 1970. I bet he'd know of any bikes that were sold here (USA) with those dérailleurs on them. Since I ride my bikes all season long (warm seasons that is), over long distances with bike group members (modern bikes), I stick with late 70's to mid-80's stuff most of the time. So this 60's stuff is out of my normal comfort zone.

bulldog1935

Here is a home-market beauty, no-name mid-range production bike, that Jan Heine posted after a recent Japan trip
https://janheine.wordpress.com/2016/...-touring-bike/
A bike like that would sell today - to me.

Don Buska

From Wikipedia on Fuji Bikes, "In the 1950s, Toshoku America acquired distribution rights to Fuji-made bicycles in the United States. Toshoku America sold private-label Fuji-made bicycles as house brands through U.S. retailers such as Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Wards."

That's why I was asking if perhaps these Suntour derailleurs have shown up in those store bikes between 1965 and 1969. Since the "Fuji" name didn't appear here until 1971. Not much information on the web about which bikes and for how long Toshoku did the rebranding in that long period during the 50's and 60's. Maybe an ex-Toshoku employee will be kind enough to write up their bike history sometime.

noglider 

Aha, that makes sense. Thanks!

bulldog1935

The catalogs of Japanese vintage bicycle - this link is Fuji-America "1960s"
Derailleurs named by the editor are Campy and Simplex.

From a distance, none of these look like SunTour - they look like Shimano and the higher grade are Campy

Don Buska

I agree I looked over this page before and your right not much looks like Suntour. Weird since they started selling in the USA under the Fuji name in 1971 and they were a big Suntour equipment user well into the 80's. Funny they did not use it on their Japanese destination bikes in the late 60's. Albeit, that does not mean they didn't use them on export bikes. I like their early 80's high end frames (Professional and Newest) as they used Superbe or Superbe Pro dropouts and those don't show up on many frames. Heck the Superbe dropouts are probably much rarer than Campagnolo's.

T-Mar

I had a chance to do some research into this during the holidays. In the mid-1960s, the market for derailleur equipped bicycles in the USA was still relatively small. American companies chose to source from Europe, as they were acknowledged leaders in the "racing bicycle" field. Sales were still low enough that European manufacturers could easily meet the demand, with no impact on quality or price. It did not make sense for the private labels to go to Japan when they could get the real thing from Europe.

Sears offered their first derailleur equipped bicycle in 1961 and was sourced from Puch in Austria, using Simplex derailleurs. During the 1960s, Austria was the main source for Sears bicycles. In most cases, Sears stated the country of origin and even when it didn't the Huret and Simplex derailleurs indicated a European source. The first Japanese sourced bicycle does not appear until 1968 and while the derailleur is not spec'd it does not appear to be a slant parallelogram design. The 1969 models with non-European derailleurs, clearly use Shimano derailleurs.

The other American brand that I was able to get some information on during this period was Huffy, who were obtaining their lightweights from Carlton.

Frank Berto states that SunTour did not sell derailleurs outside Japan until 1968, when it decided to pursue international markets. By this time the SunTour V was on the market. Consequently, any bicycles with Gran Prix and Competition derailleurs would have been manufactured in Japan but sourcing from Europe was still easy. The private label brand sourcing from Japan was restricted to single and three speeds.

Of course, these are general statements by Berto. There may be some exception where a private label sourced some lightweights from Japan or an LBS imported a few shipments directly but Japan does not appear to have had any impact on the derailleur equipped bicycle market in the USA until the the very late 1960s

bulldog1935

good work

T-Mar

I should also mention that the lack of distribution in the USA would have complicated any warranty claims processing. Shimano had opened American offices in 1965, allowing them to have a fair impact with their 3 speed hubs in the late 1960s. When the Americans started to build derailleur equipped bicycles, Shimano has already established themselves and were the prime choice.

Don Buska

T-Mar you always come through with your in-depth analysis of my Japanese related bike questions - Thanks again. I'll probably end up playing with either the Gran-Prix or Competition down-the-road. I have a really nice HBK (Hong Kong Bicycle - yes with a sticker indicating it was Made In Hong Kong) Chomo 10-speed that dates from 1980. Albeit, it's much newer than the derailleurs, I like the bike enough to try this unique mix on. It has a Suntour VGT on it now. A side: The Chomo is a unique low end bike in that it has the ever famous low-end stem shifters, but uses nice aluminum rimmed (Ariya) wheels with quick releases on the front and back. Lower end SR cranks and other components. The only problem with these Chomo's is all the front forks were poorly chrome plated (lower half). It's bubbling up on mine, although fully intact, and I know this bike never had more than 100 driven miles on it. I've seen other Chomo's that have had the chrome portion repainted telling me this was a serious manufacturing plating issue. My guess is it was stored in a garage that went through some seasonal large temp swings.

Thanks again T-Mar - your a major asset to us Japanese bike collector/users.