banjo_mole 

Does anyone know what the lineup of Schwinns was from about 1970-1975?

Specifically road/sport bikes, although we can do 3-speeds and stuff too.

I figure right at the bottom is the Varsity.

And at the top, Paramount. What's the middle?

4Rings6Stars

Some good info here: https://www.geocities.com/sldatabook/models.html. I stumbled across this earlier this year when a 73 Super Sport fell into my lap.

'72 looks to be something like:

Collegiate
Varsity
Suburban
Continental
Super Sport
Sports Tourer
Paramount


My Super Sport was beautiful but had a stuck seat post I couldn't break and I was frustrated and sold it cheap. Really wish I still had it...I might try to track it down.

rhenning

In 1973 there was also a World Voyager which was ahead of or a tie with the Sports Tourer. There was also that year a World Traveler the was a lugged frame Continental. Roger

banjo_mole 

Wait... What about the le tour?

pastorbobnlnh 

LeTour was not introduced until '74 and '75. Made by Panasonic at first but by the end of the '70s they were made in Chicago.

4Rings6Stars

If that link I provided is correct, then the Le Tour was introduced in 73 (but did not appear in the catalog).

jacksbike

There was a basic Japanese made bike that was introduced before the LeTour. Maybe was called the World Sport, but I can be corrected on this. Schwinn had finally awakened to the fact that their average bike weighed 10 pounds more than any Japanese or European lightweight road bike on the market. I think that this bike sold for around $139.95, but that was very early 70's. After this model, if I am correct, you started seeing Panasonic made LeTours, Voyagers, etc., My Dad was a big Schwinn dealer and we starting getting some serious competition from the new shop down the street selling lighter weight Motobecane's and Takara's.

pastorbobnlnh 

Thanks for the correction. I knew they were available one year and in the catalog the next. My memory must be slipping.

sonatageek

I believe you are thinking of the World Voyageur which was a very good quality bike and the World which was good, but a step down from the World Voyageur.

Sierra

The lower level bike was the World Traveler which Roger referenced above.

rhenning

There were two models of Worlds in 1973. These were the first out sourced Japanese bike and because they were imports many Schwinn dealers didn't want them or stock them. They only say Schwinn on the seat tube in one small place. The head badge says World. In 1974 they morphed into Le Tours. Some Le Tour frames were built in 1973 but all were called 1974 models. Here is a picture of my 3 Worlds. The front bike is the lower end Traveler and the back two are Voyagers which were high end bikes. Roger

Sierra

I would say that the World Traveler morphed into the Traveler and the World Voyageur morphed into the Voyageur II. The LeTour was somewhere between these two models, better than the Traveler with it's one piece crank but not nearly as nice as the Voyageur II with it's double butted chrome-moly frame tubing and chromed head lugs.

Oregon Southpaw

Hindsight is 20/20, but man they should have axed like half their line-up and started building true lightweights much sooner.

I get the feeling that Paramounts weren't even really available in most of the dealerships without a special order. So really, the Schwinn selection for most of the seventies was a variation of the Varsity and Continental.

I also get the feeling that Schwinn was sort of asleep at the wheel during the bike boom. Answer? Build more Varsities!

NormanF

The new steels came too late to save Schwinn. I lived through the 70s and in many respects its the twilight of the era before globalization. Its birth killed off Schwinn as an American company. Today it is just a brand.

Sierra

Much has been written and discussed about this over the years.

A pretty good book on the subject is No Hands; The Rise and Fall of the Schwinn Bicycle Company, an American Institution by Judith Crown and Glenn Coleman.

During the bike boom years of the early seventies, Schwinn and everyone else were selling every bike that they could make or otherwise lay their hands on. This is part of the reason that Schwinn started importing the World bikes in '72. It's also part of reason why in the opinion of many, the quality started to suffer. They were cranking them out as fast as they could.

Oregon Southpaw

Sierra, while I agree that this subject has been discussed and written about over the years, it is quickly sliding into the "memory hole".

No Hands is certainly a good book, and one that C&V members who enjoy Schwinns should certainly read. That being said, I think the Schwinn story is interesting enough on its own and as potential allegory for industrial-nepotist America. Some of my frustration comes from the fact that I simply cannot find many good images of the era - inside the factory, Paramount cage, the Mississippi factory. Google some of that stuff and its like it never existed. Then again, who was taking loving pictures of the inside of factories...

I still think the definitive Schwinn story (pre-Doral of course) has yet to be written. Collecting and archiving just the advertising, in-house copy, and general ephemera could take a lifetime.

Jeff Wills

Yah, you betcha...

I worked in a Schwinn shop from 1979 to 1984- just in time to see the beginning of the slide. I need to go back (it's still in operation) and see if the archives of old catalogs are still there. There were copies of catalogs dating back to the early '60's. The Schwinn repair manuals were things of beauty, too.

Have you read the Schwinn histories written by Sheldon Brown?
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/chicago-schwinns.html
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/schwinn-braze.html

FWIW: I started out on a Sting-Ray, progressed to a 3-speed Collegiate, 5-speed Collegiate, Le Tour III, and then a Superior. Damn I miss that Superior.

Sierra

Both Bob Hufford and Tom Findley have been gathering digital images of the catalogs and other Schwinn printed material and putting them online for all to view and use for reference.

Bob's website is the Schwinn Lightweight Data Book and has been around for quite a while.
It's been on Geocities which is shutting down so Ric Greene and Bob are rewriting the code and moving it to another site. The SLDB covers the years from 1960 through 1979 as it's main focus is the derailleur equipped road bikes before Paramount production ceased at the Chicago factory.

Tom Findley covers a wider range of years on his website.

jacksbike

Very good info from everyone. Yes, during the bike boom years Schwinn was selling every bike that it could manufacture. I remember being at some Schwinn convention, possibly in Boston, where either Al Fritz or Frank Schwinn stated that the physical manufacturing operations were so overworked that they were being held together with bubble gum. I agree with Oregon Southpaw's statements that Schwinn could be a good poster child for the downfall of U.S. manufacturing. My father, who sold Schwinn's for almost 30 years, is probably spinning in his grave knowing that Schwinn's are being sold at Wal-Mart and BJ's Wholesale clubs.
Yes, Schwinn missed the boat when it came to being in tune with the market of lightweights, and also with mountain bikes. But didn't Detroit scoff at Toyota's introduction of the hybrid Prius ? They continued making gas guzzling monsters that made them $15,000 profit per vehicle. This was while the Prius sales slowly continued to increase. Trying to market a Chevy Suburban with a hybrid type engine addition was a joke. So, they are where they are today because of arrogance and incompetence.
Well, enough of that. Will definitely look up the book about the Schwinn history. I never saw any pictures of the Mississippi factory, but would also be interested in more info of the collapse of Schwinn.

jgedwa

Schwinn made some huge mistakes in my judgment. Very similar to a lot of the mistakes made by Detroit in the same era.

However, it does strike me that the deck was stacked against them. Look at what has happened to almost ALL manufacturers in the last 30 years. Either you sell an inexpensive product or you get steamrolled. The biggest variable in many manufacturing processes (certainly including bike stuff) is labor. When the price of domestic labor is no longer competitive, then either it shifts overseas or you die. Schwinn really would have had to reinvent themselves (e.g., sell themselves) to survive. Car manufacturers have survived for another couple of decades because of the higher shipping costs of a car and because of state sponsorship. So, I rather doubt there would have been any realistic way that Schwinn could have survived in any form that would be consistent with its past.

jim