A Columbia Folding Bike--From England?

I came of age as a cyclist during the '70's Bike Boom of North America.  Ten-speeds were the bikes of choice.  Of US bike manufacturers, only Schwinn had been producing derailleur-equipped bikes in the years before the boom.  Other manufacturers--such as Columbia, Murray and AMF--began to offer "lightweight" bikes made of flash-welded gaspipe tubing with derailleurs and hand brakes.  To be fair, Schwinn's "lightweights"--with the exceptions of the Paramount and Superior--were also tanks with derailleurs fitted to them.  

AMF Hercules three-speed, made in England

A similar scenario played out during the 1950s and 1960s.  While the number of adult cyclists--and the demand for adult bicycles--were nowhere near as great as that of the 1970s, both increased gradually during those two decades.  And American bike manufacturers were not ready to produce the bike requested by adults:  three speed "English racers".  None--not even Schwinn--had ever made such a bike.

Schwinn responded in the way they would to the demand for ten-speeds in the 1970s:  they fitted their heavy frames with Sturmey-Archer three-speed hubs and called those bikes "lightweights".  On the other hand, other American bike companies did something that would have, in an earlier decade, seemed unthinkable:  they imported bikes and re-badged them.  

So, English three-speed bikes were sold under the brands of AMF (Hercules), Huffy and other American companies.  Strip away their decals and they are indistinguishable from Raleigh, Rudge or other English three-speed bikes of the time.

Columbia was another American manufacturer who imported English three-speeds.  That fact leads me to believe that this Columbia might also have been made by one of those British manufacturers:

The tell-tale signs of a Raleigh folding bike are there:  the brakes, the Sturmey-Archer hub, the cottered crank (at least in the style seen on that bike).  But the frame doesn't look like any of the folding or "shopper" bikes Raleigh was making at the time.  The frames of most such machines had, in essence, a down tube but no top tube.  The reverse is true on the Columbia in the photos. I wonder how that affects the ride.

I watched the bike on eBay a few months ago. No, I didn't buy it!  I admit, I was tempted: It would have been an interesting project.  Apparently, not many of those bikes were made, and from what I could find, Columbia offered them in only one year:  1966.

Fifty years later, no bike like it--or, for that matter, the old English three-speed--is made today.  And, of the bike brands mentioned in this post, only two exist today:  Schwinn and Raleigh.  Both are owned by conglomerates and their bikes are made for them in China or Taiwan.  Which means, of course, that it's unlikely that any bike like the Columbia folder will be made any time soon.

Is It English Or American?

Today, if someone has heard of AMF, he or she is most likely a bowler.  AMF remains one of the main manufacturers of pin-setting machines and other equipment used in kegling.

However, not so long ago (I say things like that to make myself feel young!), AMF was actually one of the world's largest bicycle manufacturers.  Around the same time, they also manufactured Harley-Davidson motorcycles.  But AMF bicycles never inspired the sort of loyalty that HD motorcycles have long enjoyed, and with good reason.   Most AMF bikes--which were sold under the "Roadmaster" name--were sold in department stores and were inferior even to other department-store brands like Murray and Columbia.

Roadmaster was a free-standing bike brand before AMF took them over in 1950.  A few years later, AMF would sell another line of bikes made for them in England--in Nottingham, no less.  You may well have seen one of those bikes, sold under the name "AMF-Hercules".  I saw a pretty fair number of them when I was growing up.

Those bikes bore all of the hallmarks of an English three-speed:  the same kind of lugged frame made from mild steel, the steel sidepull brakes, handlebars, stem and cottered cranks--and, most important, the same Sturmey-Archer three-speed hub.

In fact, if you stripped away the AMF-Hercules decals and badge, you'd probably think you were looking at a Raleigh, Rudge, Robin Hood or one of any number of other English three-speeds from that time.

However, the AMF-Hercules bikes differed in a few details from their Anglo peers.  It seems that AMF marketers thought that the bikes would sell only if they were given some of the same baroque flourishes found on American balloon-tired bikes (like the Schwinn Phantom and Hollywood) of the time, which in turned echoed the fulsomely-fendered and lushly-chromed cars of the time.

I mean, look at that chainguard.  Would any bike maker in Albion come up with something like that?  Or look at the two-toned seat and matching bag.  I don't recall seeing anything like those in the Brooks catalogues!

So...Was it an English bike trying to be American? Or was it an American bike in the body and soul of an English bike?