Everyone is asking about Schwinns and Huffy's from their childhood so I'll ask too
 

I had a Huffy 3-speed banana-seat 20" that I've never seen anything like. When I was a kid nobody had one like it and I've yet to find a picture with the same frame -much less a similar paint job.

The bike had twin top tubes -not the ones that swoop down to the downtube and there is a main top tube but JUST two top tubes. They went past the head tube and there were two chromed "tips" that extended out past it.

It had a 3-speed Shimano hub out back with a "console" shifter that sat in between the two top tubes with a T-handle top knob. There was a big plastic chrome-plated console cover over the shifter itself that spanned the top tubes and went nearly all the way from the head tube to the seat tube.

It was your standard banana-seat bike with ape bars, side-pull calipers, and 20" wheels front and back. It came painted in Red with flames on the fenders and chain guard as well as printed into the vinyl banana seat cover. the rear fender had a "flip" at the back and the rear tire was squared off like a car tire or sort of like a dragstrip motorcycle. it turned for crap with that wide flat tire in the back and my dad eventually replaced it after I wore it out on purpose doing skids to kill it.

The bike was Fire Engine LOUD with the silly flames on it and I got made fun of something fierce for it. I hated that flashy flame scheme but looking back on it now it was kind of cool but I just didn't have the panache back then to pull it off. My sister had an almost matching bike with a step-through frame that was blue in a water motif instead of flames. I don't think they were a matched set but perhaps they were but the style of the frames were totally different. I just think my dad thought it was cool that my sister was water and I was fire.

I can't even find a picture of this type of frame with just two top tubes that ran past the seat tube and then became the seatstays almost like on a mixte although they passed the seat tube at the very top and then turned downwards sharply at that point and were regular seat stays not like that Sears bike where they came back all the way to the banana seat rear stays and then curved straight down. This wasn't like that at all.

No pictures -not one from my childhood which is amazing as I rode that bike everywhere for about 10 years. Finally fixed it up and gave it away to friend's kid in the 90's who promptly got it stolen 2 days later because he didn't bother to lock it up.

Sounds like a Huffy Rail, mine was a 5 speed but the frame sounds identical.

Mine was purple like this one:

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A..._i_mZ7VPCM69Ug

Here's the 3 speed version:

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...Kmno8GeOxAXfjP

Only two small twin top tubes -no third central one like the Rail and not as long a wheelbase either. The overall geometry of the bike was closer to that of a modern BMX bike. It just had twin top tubes that became the seat stays and nothing else up top as far as tubes.

My 3rd bike (1972, age 7) was a used Huffy "Dragster" S/S in that same copper color. My Mom paid $15-
I remember EVERYONE (it seemed) had a Huffy "Cheater Slick" back then, yellow w/ white rims & black seat w/ yellow stripe, which a couple years later
were replaced by EVERYONE riding Black Huffy "Thunder Road" BMX bikes (which came w/a sticker-"Not for off-road use")-

Seemed only rich kids rode Schwinns, we weren't rich, but I begged my Mom to put one in layaway and got a new Stingray ($65) for my 8th birthday.
I used it for a BMX conversion when that got huge in 1974-Heavy as hell but it held up where Huffys would turn to dust!

The only Schwinns I ever had I got second hand, a lime green Sting Ray for $10, and many years later a partial Varsity that I restored and sold.

My Huffy Rail was used to deliver papers, I took the banana seat off and replaced it with a middleweight seat, than added one of those heavy steel newspaper racks. It worked reasonably well and stood up to my abuse.

Was it a "Red Hot"?

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedi...bicycle-banana

There is a later model (74-75?) on Ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-Vintage-HUF...d=242925086212

The later bikes had trigger shifters instead of the stik shift. This one has a black saddle instead of the red flamey version of the earlier bike.

Slingshot on ebay
Link

Edit: that one has the smaller front wheel.

Years later, I find this reply after recently finding the name "Huffy Red Hot" and searching for info on my old bike. Somehow I missed this reply from Kingsting who had given me the name which flew right by me.

Yes, it was a Huffy Red Hot with a console shifter between the top tubes that looked like a shifter from a car. It was huge, and had a big T-handle and there was a large chrome-plated plastic cover over it like the housing at the top of the transmission tunnel in a car with a big 1 - 2 -3 on it and the T-handle shifter knob sticking through it.

It was a real nut-buster whenever I crashed, especially after the plastic T-handle cracked and broke off so it was just the stamped metal lever sticking up through the plastic console cover.