Performance M-207????
 

Does anybody know anything about Performance brand Bicycles? I bought a Performance M-207 off of a scrapper truck for 10 bucks, almost in perfect condition. I have searched everywhere online about them and cannot find anything about them. It is an amazingly smooth and fast ride. How rare are they?

Looks like a 20yo full suspension MTb with STX components and I would assume Deore too(since that was a pretty common mix to make a bike more appealing).

The bike itself is probably relatively rare since its a house brand MTB from 20 years ago so limited numbers would have been sold to begin with and many wont still be around due to the nature of the sport and the age of the bike.

This is an instance where rarity doesnt equal value though. If it works, perfect its a deal- go ride it and have fun. But with the absurd yearly advances(and often just changes) in MTB technology, vintage isnt really appreciated like it more often is with road bikes.

This is a house-brand bike from the Performance Bike shop chain. Made by a 3rd party, and sold only in Performance shops/ catalog.
House-brands, from shops like Performance, Nashbar and REI, are considered to be 'value' buys, retailing for less than a 'major brand' like Giant or Trek, at a similar spec.

A quick google turned up an M-407, and 307, from 1998, or so; I'd say your M-207 is the next rung down the model ladder. So, is it rare? Yes, there proabably weren't many of them, and fewer have survived the last two decades. Valuable? Not really. There's not much market for 20-year old, low-end FS bikes.

Even high-end MTBs from 20 years ago are obsolete, but that doesn't mean they're not good bikes. For $10, if all it needs is a seat, you practically stole that bike.

Take another picture of it during the day, and we can get a better idea of what you're working with.

manufacturer???
 

I have taken some more photos of the bike. Another question i have is who manufactured this bike?
(ex. trek, mongoose, schwinn etc...)

No idea- but it was clearly a company in Taiwan based on the sticker on the head tube.

Schwinn stopped making frames a decade earlier and didnt build bikes for other companies. Mongoose frames had been outsourced for probably a decade by this time. Trek didnt/doesnt make bikes for other companies.

WAG on who made the frame- Giant. Totally WAG based only on it being the largest Taiwanese frame builder. Could have been Merida, Maxway, or any number of other manufacturers.

D) All of the above.
E) None of the above.

There are a lot of bicycle factories in Taiwan. Probably one of the outfits that was making '2nd tier' bikes like Mongoose and Diamondback. But it is it's own thing; it's not a 'Trek with different stickers'

It's also a URT (unified rear triangle) which is a design that was an attempt to eliminate unwanted suspension behavior under climbing (pedal bob / chain 'jacking') using the (primitive by today's standards) coil shocks of the era. The suspension pivot is moved ahead of the BB, so essentially, the entire drivetrain is on the swingarm.
It makes for pretty snappy acceleration, but if you stand out of the saddle, the suspension essentially goes away.

One of those 'good idea on paper' that created more problems than it solved, it pretty much came and went between 1997-1998.

Interesting choice of running gear on that particular example. Should be a fun city bike.

Not a bike i'm looking to add to my fleet, but for $10, i'd be hard-pressed to pass it up.

I'd buy that for $10 all day long.

Can't help on much beyond that, though. Find some knobbies and give her a run down on a tamer trail, see how she works.