Saw a 70's Apollo this morning when I stopped for coffee... was a rather beaten up green step through with a Deelite head badge which was one of the trading names for Fred Deely Cycles in Vancouver. They were the Canadian importer for Apollo and Kuwahara bicycles and at a glance one would think they were looking at a Peugeot.

The green is almost the same, there are checkers on the ends of the seat tube transfer and even the Deelite badge is red and silver like the Peugeot badges and logo.

The Japanese knew who they were going up against and the bike was of course fitted out with lower end Shimano parts and not Simplex... Apollo's were nicely made bikes (they were made by Kuwahara) and the quality level was probably a step up from entry level Pugs although they didn't quite match the sex appeal of these exotic French machines and had yet to develop their good reputation.

It would still be a few years after this bike was made before consumers started to realize what a good bicycle the Japanese were making and this was the start of the end of Raleigh and Peugeot's dominance in the market.

When Raleigh started equipping their bikes with Suntour gear in '77 they had everything branded as Raleigh as they were not sure people would accept Japanese parts on a British made bike... in only a few years these Japanese bits became a selling feature. My '79 Raleigh Super Grand Prix had a full Shimano 600 group on it.