Oilit
Cruisin' on my Bluebird
I want to see some Roadmaster Skylarks. The Skylark was Roadmaster's cantilever middleweight with a chromed frame. From the catalogs, it looks like it was introduced in 1962 and was produced through 1966. Besides being cool looking bikes, this may help me figure out the mid-'60's AMF serials. From 1958 AMF started putting the serial number on the left drop-out, and the model numbers in the catalogs all start with a letter determined by the year - 1959 = "J", 1960 = "K", 1961 = "L" and 1962 = "M". And the serial numbers used in a particular year start with the same letter as the model numbers, but in 1963 the pattern changes. Instead of "N", the model numbers start with "P", then "R" in 1964, "T" in 1965 and "U" in 1966. For the serial numbers, the letter is followed by a 6 digit number, which would allow production of 999,999 bikes before you needed to add a digit or change the letter. I'm guessing that in 1962 AMF produced more than a million bikes and instead of adding another digit, they just started using more than one letter in a year. So there may be bikes with serial numbers beginning with "M" and "N" in 1962, then they skipped "O" and started 1963 with "P" serials. But it's only a guess, because I haven't seen enough '60's AMF bikes to know for sure. So let's see some cool bikes and maybe solve a mystery while we're at it!
The Skylark for 1962:
The Skylark for 1962: