Fahrenheit531 

Brought home an '81 Voyageur 11.8 the other night but the serial number seems weird. No letter in the date code, just numbers. I keep trying to turn that first 8 into a letter because then it'll vaguely conform to SN traditions, but nope. It's clearly an 8:



So my educated guess is the frame was built in March of '81 (insert "well duh" here). But who used this SN format?

Metacortex

That does indeed seem to be the s/n format used on that model, the same format can be seen in these other examples:

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...11-8-help.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...-voyageur.html
Schwinn Voyageur 11.8 | Chicago Stolen Bike Registry

According to the Asian Serial Number Guide posted by @T-Mar, that would be the format used by Kuwahara. This suggests that they were possibly the supplier of the Voyageur 11.8 frames at that time.

Does it have a 4-digit or 3-digit number on the headbadge? I ask because the badge date stamp is supposed to be 4 digits, however there are a number of Voyageur 11.8 models with only 3-digit stamps, and that may be related to the supplier.

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...headbadge.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...barn-find.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...-voyageur.html

Fahrenheit531 

Badge: 1072. So I guess it's actually an '82. Fair enough. Mostly I was just looking for the manufacturer, and you already got that. Thanks @Metacortex.