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Puch Bicycles
Puch Bikes was founded by Johann Puch in Austria in 1889 and soon turned to the more profitable motorcycle and auto manufacturing 1). By 1908 it had manufactured over 100,000 bicycles. Puch became a subsidiary of Austro-Daimler in 1928 and today now a part of Bianchi. It continues making cruisers and ebikes: https://www.puch-bikes.com/.
Much history is available about Puch. See this 400 page book, or Facebook page. Mountain Bikes, as usual, get very little mention, especially in early 80's European sources, so that almost nothing can be found about their first “Mountain Jet” bicycle. Puch did collaborate with Murray from 1979 → 1982 to produce motorcycles and cheap klunkers for the US market. The Murray Baja was marketed as a “Puch Murray,” so that Puch had early experience being financially invested in mountain bikes 2)
1981 Puch Murray
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1900: When fixies were cool.
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Aphrodite: Blond goddess of fixies and crabapples.
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1983 Mountain Jet
Double chainring crankset, 6 speed freewheel.
1983 Mountain Jet
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1984 Puch 160
The date is a guess, as this 160 is equipped with a 5 speed freewheel, unlike later versions which had larger 3×6 speeds 3).
1984 160
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1985 160
This pic is possibly a 1986 model, as it looks very much like the 1986 catalog. Until a 1983, 1984 or 1985 catalogs come to light, much of all this is guess work.
1986 Catalog
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1985 160
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Production Notes
[1]. ?
1)
A similar path was taken by Carl Benz, Armand Peueot, Opel Automobile, Škoda and most early auto manufacturers…
2)
The Murray Baja looks to be entirely a US production item, aside from parts. Puch supplied components for their motorcycles while Murray made the frames, assembled the bikes, and marketed/sold them. It's hard to see what Puch donated to the Baja.
puch/start.1629048179.txt.gz · Last modified: 2021/08/15 10:22 by gchandler