My affection for things CWC leads me to some strange places and all the recent talk about the “Reproduction” Roadmaster Luxury Liners put me to task to see what I could find to clarify the background of this model. I’ve also added some of my observations (or opinions) about the Roadmaster replica and replicas in general.
First of all here is a basic time-line for Roadmaster bicycles put together from several sources:
1910 - Cleveland Welding Founded
1936 - Cleveland Welding introduces the Roadmaster Line of bicycles
1951 - AMF purchases Cleveland Welding
1956 - AMF moves all wheel good manufacturing operation to Little Rock Arkansas
1962 - AMF wheel good headquarters moves to Olney Illinois
1987 - AMF spins off Roadmaster Industries as a subsidiary
1996 - Roadmaster Industries is purchased by Brunswick
1999 - Brunswick sells the Roadmaster brand to Pacific Cycle
2004 - Pacific Cycle is acquired by Dorel Industries
This timeline is enough for me to find the heritage chain between the original of 1947-8 and the replica of 1998 arguably less than continuous.
Even more relevant is the following, essentially from the horses mouth, which I found posted on the Old Roads site:
“The Roadmaster Luxury Liner was made in a run of 6200 pieces. They claim only 5000 were made but the actual production was 6200.
I sold Roadmaster an original mint 1948 Luxury Liner that they used to retool off of for this bike.
The wheels and pedals and a few of the parts were stamped in Taiwan but the frames and painting miscellaneous parts and assembly was done in the USA by Brunswick in Illinois and Wisconsin.”
There are plenty of lines to read between but to me it sounds like the frames were built in the US and that painting and assembly was done here but the original tooling for the sheet metal parts did not still exist and was replicated and retooled from an original to produce the parts for the project. I assume that if the sheet metal had been stamped here from original dies that would have been specifically stated.
The poster went on to differentiate the Roadmaster repops as being much better made than the contemporary Columbia and Schwinn repops but I believe he may have been too closely linked to the project to be considered completely unbiased.
Opinions (mine, of course)
It’s funny to see how fast time gobbles up what is new and turns it into the past. While there is still plenty of opportunity to buy these bikes N.I.B. it is fun to see a number of these bikes appearing for sale that were ridden hard (as they were not meant to be, It’s a limited edition collectible, take care of it and it will take care of you!) and put away wet.
I have never had any strong feelings for or against these bikes and I have always felt that on the whole these factory produced replicas don’t have any major effect on the hobby either good or bad. If need be, I’m sure that the reproductions can be differentiated from the originals and, on the other hand, they are similar enough that if you are missing a headlight from your original bike, a repop will fill the void till the real one comes along.
Apparently 6200 repops were produced so in real numbers that is about two weeks of CWC production from the day. Still the number made was larger than the market for the bikes turned out to be and neither the ad-speak of limited production collectability or massive price slashing could get them out the door in a timely fashion.
It may be that as these bikes age the story they tell will ultimately be embraced by seasoned collectors but currently it seems to me that the market for the originals is just a different market than the one for the repops; each appealing to a different group of people for a different set of reasons.
The appeal of the original bikes has a lot to do with the fact that they are true artifacts of an earlier time and were not built to be collectible or as a tribute to anything but were examples of standard goods from their time. As such they are perfect little time machines that can be placed in your living room for contemplative journeys.
I suppose that the biggest problem with the repops is that for many the time dial is set to the wrong decade short-circuiting the trip to a place most of us aren’t ready to return to.
Oddly though, I find the replica bikes can, in a stretch, be seen and enjoyed in the same light as the originals because in there own way, they are a real part of the zeitgeist of their time. They represent a very specific part of the history of the American bicycle at a time when the industry was making a last ditch attempt to grab the attention of American consumers and to find a possibly sustainable niche market to regroup from.
By this time the market had changed so much and for so many reasons that the replica bikes were conceived more to ride on the prevailing ambiance of nostalgia for the good old days than to satisfy anyone’s transportation needs. As an added marketing ploy, so redolent of the late 80’s and 90’s they were initially marketed as a boutique item at boutique prices. At $3000.00 dollars a pop there was probably a healthy profit margin visualized on their production but after the “Few” drug one home at that price the overproduced bikes pricing structure free fell to a level likely below the cost of production.
So, to a contemplative collector the primary interest in the bikes may be in that they represent a halo product from the last bunker days of the American Bicycle Industry. (And of course they did add to the availability of those finned headlights that were all originally consumed by battery acid.) To an active (as in one who rides rather than gazes) collector, the interest is likely more along the lines of something that is presentable and rideable out of the box and will garner the same public thumbs up as the more expensive and conditionally fragile original.
Lastly, while I am fine with the bikes themselves, I sort of balk at the terms “reproduction” and “continuation” that have become part of the standard lexicon used to describe these bikes and other products generally embued with a tenuous hereditary link to the original. Repop is slang and works well but perhaps “replica” is the best word to use to describe them. To my mind there is no implication of author-heritage in the word replica whereas there is in both the “re” of re-production which conveys a sense of someone doing something over and the concept of continuation which also seems inappropriate if the continuation is by a different company, in a different factory, in a different state, by a completely different workforce 50 years after the original was discontinued and put to rest.
After this post I would love to get an original and a repop together to document the differences but I don’t have either within easy reach…still I’ll put the project on my bucket list.
