Frank V. Schwinn had to decide whether hiscompany should continue a “Made in America” tradition that had served it well forseveral decades. Despite all of these problems, Schwinnwas still a major force in the bicycle industry in the USA throughout thedecade. He began emphasizing marketing and financing at theexpense of modernizing the factory. He felt most comfortable in finance andsales but now had to run the whole company. This approach had some success inthe beginning but over time it began to take its toll on Schwinn. Experience the thrill of peak performance with our selection of high-performance bikes and components.
PosterCorner.com offers the best Giclee reproduction posters of actual, old advertisement lithographs spanning periods from art nouveau and belle epoque to art deco thru mid-century modern. When approached to negotiate a contract with the new union, Schwinnmanagement stonewalled. The strike was settled in 1981 and the union made modestgains in schwinn bicycles salaries and benefits. The vote to unionize had reinforced Schwinn’s desire to closethe Chicago factory.
A growing number of US teens and young adults were purchasing imported European sport racing or sport touring bicycles, many fitted with multiple derailleur-shifted gears. Schwinn decided to meet the challenge by developing two lines of sport or road ‘racer’ bicycles. One was already in the catalog — the limited production Paramount series. The Paramount series had limited production numbers, making vintage examples quite rare today.
Now in the latter part of the 1940s, the company withits stable of high-quality products was poised for the coming increase indemand generated by the return of war veterans. The Paramount was never the most profitable product for thecompany but it firmly engraved the Schwinn name into the annals of bicyclehistory. One goal of the Paramount line was to market the Schwinn brand as producingbicycles of the highest quality.
In 2021, a new chapter begins with the sale of the Schwinn brand to Pon Holdings, a manufacturer of high-quality bicycles. Pon Holdings emphasize that one major reason for its purchase of Dorel Sports was that Schwinn is one of the major known brands of bicycles in the USA. The fate of the Schwinn brand is still unknown, but being part of a larger company with deep pockets may lead to innovation and perhaps even to upgrading their offered bicycles. To accomplish this, in the mid-1980s Schwinnpurchased a one-third share of a China Bicycles factory in Hong Kong (Crown andColeman 1996).
To make matters worse, Schwinn marketing materials such as the catalogs at the end of this article were sent to small shops that sold less than one Schwinn per year. During this fresh start, Schwinn turned its energy towards marketingduring this period of growth of consumerism. At Schwinn, the engineeringculture established in the 1930s had laid the groundwork for producing a schwinn mountain bike varietyof new high-quality bicycles.