'78! Why son you should do a little research on the Puch line. The one I own, and I hardly think it could pass for one of their early bikes, is about a '65 "PUCH Bergmeister". And, considering what was available at the time, it's an above-average bike in my opinion, and not just because it came with Campy Grand Sport derailleurs either. And, just in case you didn't know, most of the J.C. Higgins bikes sold by Sears in the '50's & '60's were built by Steyr/Puch, or whatever they called themselves back then.
On Sat, 30 Dec 2000 21:44:22 -0500 "Russ Fitzgerald"
<rfitzger@emeraldis.com> writes:
> I have heard the tale of Austro-Daimler/Puch/Steyr being interested
> in
> selling bikes to meet some regulation regarding firearms sales in
> the U.S.,
> as well - though I never heard it in the 70s.
>
> I'm not too sure it would have helped, though - mostly the arms
> Steyr built
> were long guns, which have/had fewer restrictions. For that matter,
> my
> perception is that their rifles in particular were pricey enough to
> be
> serious luxuries - either the ugly Steyr AUG (a favorite of
> Hollywood films
> for a while there, but I've never seen one in the Southeast at any
> range or
> gun shop or gun show, if that means anything) or the exquisite
> Mannlicher-Schoenauer bolt-actions, which are frequently dainty
> little
> carbines that make one think of Hemingway and safaris in the 20s and
> the
> Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.
>
> The first Puchs or ADs I saw were in the mid-70s. My perception at
> the time
> was that AD was the premium line, with Puch being the lesser line of
> bikes -
> sort of like Gibson did when they acquired Epiphone and built both
> brands of
> guitars on the same production lines.
>
> In early 1978, a bike shop in Macon did its best to sell me a Puch
> Royal
> Force, which was the top of the line bike that year if memory serves
> me
> correctly. List was something like $550 or $600. I want to say it
> was
> silver grey, with lots of black anodized parts - in fact, I think it
> was all
> Shimano Dura-Ace. Full 531 Reynolds frame, SunTour dropouts. Also
> tubulars
> on low-flange (I think) black Dura Ace hubs.
>
> Two or three months later, my father got me a Puch Royal X from a
> shop in
> Dekalb, GA. Same frame, but in white (they also made them in salmon
> that
> year). Mix of parts that would make an iBOB happy - Dura Ace
> cranks,
> SunTour Cyclone derailleurs, power-ratchet dt shifters, Weinmann
> Carrera
> sidepulls, SR bars, stem and post. Wheels were Normandy Sport
> high-flange
> hubs, Weinmann 27x1 1/4 rims, 70 psi tires of some sort or another.
> Paid
> $340, including some parts swaps before it left the shop.
>
> I probably should not tip my hand here, but I do keep hoping I'll
> stumble
> onto a Royal X in white someday. The only real value they have is
> sentimental, though - they were built a lot like Gitanes or Peugeots
> or
> Raleighs, but with less character. It all worked, it was
> functional, but it
> was definitely a production line bike with all sorts of glitches in
> fitting
> and finish. Seriously, my Puch had the worst paint job of any bike
> I ever
> owned, including the $50 West German Brownie I rattle-canned white
> when I
> was 13 ...
>
> Russ Fitzgerald
> Greenwood SC
> rfitzger@emeraldis.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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