Don,
Two responses in one message...
When I was in Japan in 1964 and 65 both National and Panasonic were widely marketed brand names for everything from rice cookers to home appliances to personal electronics. They were ubiquitous!
Here's a picture taken in Japan in 1964 before one of our group rides.
Notice the signs on the building at the right side of the picture. The circles with the Japanese characters in them were National logos.
Panasonic used the same logo but with "Panasonic" in the red "N" instead. Note, the red line points to me. ;-)
Here's a history of Panasonic/National/Technics consumer electronic logos.
Back around 1977? nylon sewups appeared on the US market. They were well made but never caught on that much because A. they were expensive and B. the rumor going around was that they didn't rise a smooth as top quality cotton and silk tires.
I think that they were labeled under several different brands beside Raleigh, maybe Panasonic? plus another bike manufacturer???
I was always curious them but I a had a good cheap source for Clement Paris-Robaix and Del Mundo sewups.
I have an NOS pair of Panaracer Tour Guard sewups from around 1979? I had the base tapes replaced and just recently mounted them on a set of wheels. I don't ride sewups that much anymore so my finely tuned sense of ride feel is gone. They felt like sewups though! ;-)
Chas. Colerich Oakland, CA USA
donald gillies wrote:
> Of course, everyone is right and I am wrong, I put the /National with
> the wrong company name - SORRY !!!
>
> Panaracer = Panasonic Racer, oops.
> National = an early american name for Panasonic / Matsushita.
>
> SO the big wired-on tire makers in Japan are Panaracer/National and IRC.
>
> When Matsushita entered the american market, like japanese companies
> they were convinced their japanese name sounded "too japanese", so
> they at first chose "Panasonic", and later "National". The same thing
> happened with Nissan, which named themself Datsun (oh there's a really
> non-japanese sounding name ... NOT!) in the early 1970's, but they
> both ended up changing names.
>
> - Don Gillies
> San Diego, CA