Some Cantilever History
Mr. Blue,
Use this useful link to browse a useful list of Schwinn Catalogs that Tom Findley graciously spent time to scan and put on the Internet. You should be able to find the answers to your questions?
http://www.trfindley.com/pg_schwinn_cats.htm
Schwinn built 26" cantilever bicycles starting in 1938, evolving into different models thru the 40-50's, then thru the 60-70's had the Heavy "Duti" (with a I) and the Typhoon.
In 1977 Schwinn reintroduced this ubiquituous design as the Schwinn Spitfire in 1977, made it for 77-79, with the Spitfire 5 only for 1979, and then in 1980 changed the name or introduced the Schwinn Cruiser and Schwinn Cruiser 5.
Also in 79 for a short period the first 5 speed Spitfires were called the "Klunker 5." These are pretty rare birds.
My understanding the name change was due to "Klunker" being a trademarked or copyrighted name coming from the new emerging Mountain Bike Trend starting from the Downhill Mountain Bikers from Marin County who were using 30"s Schwinn "StraightBar"
frames with heavy duty components to blast down Mt. Tamalpais, Marin County, California. They called their pursuits, "Klunking" and their bikes "Klunkers." It was awesome to know these old 30's Schwinns were the choice of early mountain bike history!
regards,
theSaint