Does anyone know the corporate history of...
 

any of the japanese component companies, ie. Nitto, Sakae, etc.?

Wikipedia has no articles for either of the aforementioned, and is generally pretty crappy for bike-related stuff. I've been working on adding C&V-esque articles to it a bit, but I need some help from you guys.

If you have links to any interesting bits of corporate history, for any of the important component companies of the 70s and 80s, post them here. I'll do my best to get wikipedia up to speed on old bikes.

Sounds like a noble effort. Unfortunately, I don't have anything to give to help here.

Sheldon Brown has some info, plus the article by frank berto "Sunset for Suntour" has some history of the specific group of companies that Maeda Industries was part of (and competitor to the Shimano-based group)...I think Sheldon might have a link to that article, or you can google for it.

Great article!

Thanks for the suntour link. :) It seems someone beat me to the punch on using that article as the basis for a wikipedia article. It's already there!

I'll check sheldonbrown in a bit, to see what I can dig up. There's no articles for Nitto, Sakae, Sugino, or Dia-Compe on Wikipedia. :(