Originally Posted by merlinextraligh
In my mind, its not really a Paramount. To me a classic, lugged Waterford frame is more the true successor.
Originally Posted by merlinextraligh
Tangenital question, Why is no one selling a bike labelled a Paramout now? It would seem that whoever owned the rights could make money selling bikes with that name, or sell it to someone who wanted to use it.
Well, IMHO the Match Paramounts
are Paramounts in every sense; the management of the post-bankruptcy Schwinn knew the value of the Paramount brand and outsourced the manufacture of 853 lugged frames to Match (Tim Isaacs) and the manufacture of titanium frames with identical geometry to Ben Serotta. Both Isaacs and Serotta were very experienced framebuilders with stellar reputations for extremely high quality products. I agree, though, that the lugged Waterfords are the real successors to the classic Schwinn Paramounts.
In 2001, there was a second bankruptcy (by then owner GT Brands in Denver) and Schwinn was bought by Pacific Cycle in Madison, WI, a company that had also purchased several other bike brands (Mongoose, Murray, Roadmaster). In 2004, Dorel Industries, a Canadian Company, bought Pacific Cycles.
Today, although Schwinn (Dorel/Pacific Cycles) owns the Paramount name, they seem more interested in high profits selling mediocre mostly imported products. At least we can be thankful they're not turning out cheaply made bikes with "Paramount" emblazoned all over the frame.