Marxipan

Does anyone recognize the manufacturer of this bike? Due to the fin characteristics of the bike rack and the fin like extensions of the frame







where the rear tire mounts I am assuming this is a late fifties bike.

schwinnderella

Murray , I believe.

AeroGut

Looks like it still has a head badge under the paint. I'd try to scrape that paint off and see what it says. Also, you might get better info over at the CABE.

T-Mar

+1, it's a Murray, though I'm not quite sure which model.

bikingshearer 

You're all wrong. It's the prototype for Rivendell's next model. They're calling it the "Alfred E. Neuman."

Doug Fattic 

Just as a reminder for those of you that aren't old, the space wars starting with Russian Sputniks and our space satellites started around 1958. This resulted in fins going on cars (like the 1959 Cadillac) and Lionel trains having rocket launchers on some of their cars. In fact there were a lot of toys in that era involving space travel. So I would guess these bikes must be from that 58/62 era.

bamboobike4

Families went outside to see Sputnik overhead, and then our own stuff.
Major Matt Mason was sort of the space GI Joe until GI Joe came as an astronaut.
Kids built models of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo "spacecraft."
Walter Cronkite became the go-to guy for the newscasts.
The "countdown" became so famous, it was used in ads, music, etc.

Until the movie Apollo 13, many did not know that calculations were done with slide rules and toggle switches were thrown using a stopwatch.
Mistakes would have been lethal.

Commands from Mission Control had to be done considering the time delay of the radio transmissions.

A friend of mine's mother was one of the mathematicians behind the scenes.
She ended up teaching at Columbia, breaking a ton of barriers.
He majored in "computer science" in the early 80's, turning down a scholarship from Bear Bryant.
(This was just not done in Huntsville in 1979!)

WWII transistors were refined and came out of that era, enabling "transistor radios."
They went into cars, at the same time teenagers were actually coming onto the scene as drivers.
(The affluence of the late 50's created the cruising teens of "American Graffiti," for example)

Car radios and teen independence in cars gave outlets to different types of music, like that horrible "rock and roll."
It wasn't like teens could listen to Wolfman Jack on the living room Victrola. Changes were about.
Then Elvis and the Beatles, and OMG, social change!

I recently went to a swap meet, and the finned bikes were very present, in numbers.
The bike museum nearby had at least a couple of dozen on display.
The collectors there called them "fat tired bikes."
Guys in their 70's listening to The Animals on their BlueTooth speakers.
it was very cool.

bamboobike4

Top one is a Meteor Flite.
Bottom one is a Titan X63
They are so 60's.
I do remember the Murray Missile.
Thanks for sharing the pics.

Note the luggage rack in OP's pics has the strap rails that extend all the way to the rear,
then angle back forward and down to form those raked rack mounts, and the abbreviated "springer" front.
Really ace. It's a shame the "tank" is long gone. I saw a couple of the "tanks" for sale last weekend.

bamboobike4

Model Number W?MW?

Hudson308 

These were actually manufactured by Cleveland Welding, and marketed under various brand names such as Murray, Sears and Western. There were minor changes to the sheet metal, such as the "tank", depending on the brand.