A Bitter April Fool's for Sturmey-Archer
04-01-23, 10:41 AM
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Palmer
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A Bitter April Fool's for Sturmey-Archer
On April 1st, 1956, the S-A Board of Directors approved the discontinuation of AW production and manufacturing cutover to the new SW hub.
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/sw.html
At the request of dealers and OEMs, the AW would be returned to production in 1958.
Fun fact: Drum brake and Dynohub versions of the new SW were prototyped but never manufactured. The AW gear mechanism stayed in continuous production in the AB (drum brake) and the AG (Dynohub) versions.
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/sw.html
At the request of dealers and OEMs, the AW would be returned to production in 1958.
Fun fact: Drum brake and Dynohub versions of the new SW were prototyped but never manufactured. The AW gear mechanism stayed in continuous production in the AB (drum brake) and the AG (Dynohub) versions.
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04-01-23, 10:51 AM
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Palmer
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The unproduced SB:
04-02-23, 08:41 PM
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Thanks for posting this! It's ironic that SW production began on April Fools' Day; the hub fascinates me as a near miss. From reading the article on the Sheldon Brown site, it had some interesting engineering, but probably wasn't tested rigorously enough to reveal its weaknesses and went into production with all the flaws it's known for. That history seems to have repeated with the XRF5(W) decades later (another near miss).
