1920-1968
I
1968-1973 I
1973-Present
Wilson History: 1920 - 1968
Wilson Bicycle Sales began as the Harry Wilson
Sales Agency and was originally
located in San Francisco, CA. Wilson moved to Southern California in the
early
1940s and eventually settled in their long-time location at 1136 So. Olive St,
Los Angeles, CA.
Harry Wilson, the man, is a bit of an enigma.
There is no indication he was
related
to the famous Wilson family of sporting
goods fame. However, a bit
more is known
about his flamboyant son, former Wilson president Bob
Wilson.
Bob Wilson was well known for his yachting off
Baja California and his many
Hollywood
friends like John Wayne and William Frawley (Fred Mertz of I Love
Lucy), and would often
introduce them to corporate visitors from Schwinn,
with whom Harry Wilson Sales did the marjority of their business.
Bob Wilson also discovered George Garner and
brought him to the attention of
Schwinn executives, thereby helping to establish the "Schwinn concept store."
Mr. Wilson is widely credited for bringing the Schwinn Stingray
to market,
promising to order 500 bikes when Schwinn was reluctant to manufacture such
a "crazy"
experiment.
Throughout
the 1950s, 60s,
and early 70s, Wilson had the pleasure of being the
dominant West Coast
Schwinn
distributor in an industry dominated
by Schwinn.
If you were lucky enough to be in the bicycle business during this time you
would
remember the stunning
successes: The Black
Phantom of the 50s, the
60s ultra-cool Stingray, and the 70s Varsity and
Continental 10-speeds.
Business was so good that Schwinn's close knit relationship with its distributors
had
drawn the attention of the Department of Justice and
resulted in a
massive
antitrust case.
Named in this suit were Schwinn and it's
twenty-two
independent
distributors, including Harry
Wilson Sales.
Remember, in those days bicycles were distributed like
most parts and
accessories
are
today: the factory would sell to independent distributors
who
would then
resell to dealers. Because these
distributors owned the bikes
in
their warehouses,
Schwinn had a difficult time, from a legal standpoint,
dictating pricing
policies and
to whom the distributors could sell. The fact that
the distributors were
cooperating
with Schwinn so closely was considered
tantamount to restraint of trade.
An earlier lower court ruling in Schwinn's
favor was
then appealed all the way to
the
U.S. Supreme
Court. Lawyers sent a 22,000-page record of the case, one of
the
thickest
the justices ever
had to contend with, and the long-awaited decision
was handed
down on June 12,
1967. The
High Court found against Schwinn this
time, in essence
that a manufacturer couldn't tell its distributors whom to sell
to.
That "once
the
manufacturer has parted with the title and the risk, he has parted
with
dominion over
the
product."
Schwinn had been prepared for such an outcome.
Within seventy-two hours of
the
decision, the company announced plans to open
its own regional distribution
centers
in Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, and
California. But this was a daunting
task for the
fairly modest manufacturing
company, especially after spending an
estimated $1 million in
the defense of
their lawsuit (in 1973 dollars). Schwinn
could now look forward to
spending millions more building warehouses and filling
them
with product. This was at
a time when the company's best selling
10-speeds
were
starting to face stiff
competition from relatively lightweight
Peugots, Raleighs and Motobecanes.
Where did this leave Wilson? Schwinn's
plan called for the gradual phasing in of
their
new distribution network, and
the new California warehouse wasn't
expected to be built
for several years. Schwinn's solution was to provide the
distributors out West
with the
opportunity to continue
warehousing and doing
business on an agency basis from
Chicago. Wilson was lucky enough to keep
the bike line an
additional five years.
Bob Wilson shown with industry leaders, circa
1960.
