1959 Schwinn Tornado barn find

[Henry29]

Just picked this bike up, it was hanging in the rafters of the guys barn for the last 40 years. He's retiring and selling off a few things.


Quick serial number search looks like its a 1959. I've never seen this style frame before, I have seen a tornado years ago that was a dual flat bar but they ran continuous through the rear, these are both separate. I sprayed it down with kroil cleaned a bit of surface rust off it and started to polish it, looks like it will clean up nice.

 

[GTs58]

The Tornado was first introduced in late 1957 as a promotional model and it was a straight bar frame. For 1959 and halfway thru 1961 the Tornado had twin straight bar frame. For the second half of 1961 the frame was the continuous twin bars. Four years of production and it had three different frames.

 

[koolbikes]

Thread 'Schwinn Double Straight Bar Thread'

Oct 11, 2017

Ok, figured I'd start this thread due to the common misconception that the Schwinn double straight bar frame was one year only, as I keep seeing people making this claim. It was not one year only, I have seen and or heard of them ranging from 1959 through 1962.

Now, there are two different versions of this frame,
One version, the double straight bars and seat stays are all one piece.
On the other version, the double straight bars are independent of the seat stays.

There are three models that I know of are the Typhoon, Tornado and Skipper.

I do not know all the details on these, or...

• Jay81
• Replies: 189
• Forum: All Things Schwinn

• 

 

[rustystone2112]

To bad it’s missing the headlight and tank but it does have the correct grips

 

[Henry29]

I wondered about the grips, since nothing else seems to have been changed on the bike. I'm not familiar with these grips, don't recall having seen them before. Very interesting it had a tank, I wonder if that was the last bike that tank was used on? Were the 57's Balloon tire bikes and these middleweights?

 

[Tim s]

Same grips on mine.

 

[Rigs]

Just picked this bike up, it was hanging in the rafters of the guys barn for the last 40 years. He's retiring and selling off a few things.


Quick serial number search looks like its a 1959. I've never seen this style frame before, I have seen a tornado years ago that was a dual flat bar but they ran continuous through the rear, these are both separate. I sprayed it down with kroil cleaned a bit of surface rust off it and started to polish it, looks like it will clean up nice.


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Just picked this up today. A model I’ve always wanted Beautiful tank needs horn

 

[Rigs]

Just picked this up today. A model I’ve always wanted Beautiful tank needs horn

Just picked this bike up, it was hanging in the rafters of the guys barn for the last 40 years. He's retiring and selling off a few things.


Quick serial number search looks like its a 1959. I've never seen this style frame before, I have seen a tornado years ago that was a dual flat bar but they ran continuous through the rear, these are both separate. I sprayed it down with kroil cleaned a bit of surface rust off it and started to polish it, looks like it will clean up

 

[Rigs]

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[Henry29]

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Nice, wish mine still had the tank. What year is yours?