It is too bad that Major Taylor didn't get all of this notoriety when he could have used it–meaning when he was alive.
Sorry. What the ad shows really appears to a Huffman-made WWII Victory (war-restricted) bicycle with a bent fork. Somebody has added a racing saddle and racing bars to make it look racy. Then claimed "Major Taylor" did it. Poor Major. Assure you...this certainly is not anything Major Taylor would have been involved with. No way, no how. And... Major Taylor was long dead by the time the bicycle in the pics was dreamed up.
As for the odd geometry of the head tube and what appears to be "bends" we have had numerous WWII Huffman-built Victory models with odd welds and canted head tubes such as this. It was common in as much as converted and scrap tubing was used on many of these bicycles. Common to see the head tube at an odd and unwieldy angle. Very, very common on these wartime bicycles frames. Once you have seen a few of them, this aspect becomes very familiar and just makes it even easier to identify. And all we had over many years came with black painted "flying bananas" sprocket.
However, Major Taylor DID design and engineer many things (and we have some of them) but not the bicycle shown. The stem below is the original prototype piece designed and engineered by Major Taylor. Too bad Major never got any royalties from all the the stems produced with his name on them... and no real credit for creating it until recent years. It was the first extension stem that prevented handlebars from twisting during hard riding. ,We have had this prototype since the 1970s (and it was very old then), back when hardly anyone even knew who he was. And yes, we have his original book... autographed with an elaborate example...
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