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The dual headlight lenses in the tank are reproduction too, and they are both slightly damaged. It has a reproduction tank made of fiberglass, with exact tank dimensions and mounting brackets. With scarcity, some parts on this particular mens model have been remade. The model was carried over through 19 with slight variations (I think the 40/41 model had a tail light fitted to the rear carrier and maybe the 1941 had a floating front hub). By 1940, WW2 had begun, and the bicycle manufacturers were undoubtedly examining various business strategies in the event of America joining the War. Not many of this 1939 model were sold, so it is very rare now. Which inspired which? It’s an interesting design detail often when you see a complete vehicle for the first time, you don’t necessarily notice parts that complement each other, as they blend in so well. Viktor must have been in his eighties then, and he remembers being impressed by the fact that Viktor’s wife was half Viktor’s age!Ĭompare the chainguard above with front of the tank below. My American friend Jerry, a keen bicycle collector, visited Viktor in the early 1990s. Viktor Schreckengost was one of America’s most prolific designers. Ultimately, this design (with minor modifications) continued through 1941 and was stopped when WW2 began.’
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Nor did it include the word Mercury as did later production models. Historian Leon Dixon adds: ‘Things were in such a rush to get ready for the World’s Fair exhibit that the elaborate diecast metal art-deco headpiece was not even plated as were later production models. Everyone loved it and that is how we displayed it at the World’s Fair.’ Then I hit upon the idea of incorporating them into the tank. Viktor explained: ‘…Originally we had planned to put tiny headlights atop the outside of the tank, but that didn’t work out to be as pleasing as we wanted. When Viktor took over styling duties in 1938 for the new model, there was obviously some pressure on him to go one better …and to create a new radical headlight feature. It featured a headlight pod above the handlebars that was a radical design statement. (You can see pictures of the 1936-1938 Mercury further down the page). The previous model of Mercury had been designed by the equally renowned designer Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky. It was certainly the only Mercury with lights in the tank. I bought this 1939 Mercury Pacemaker in America in 2008.ĭesigned by Viktor Schreckengost, Murray’s chief designer, this streamlined model was launched to much acclaim at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. This model is one of my favourite American bicycles. The Mercury Pacemaker was the ‘official bicycle’ of the 1939 New York Worlds Fair and several were on display in the MAN Building at the Fair. In America, Mercury was a well-established automobile model, made by Ford.īut the most famous two-wheeled Mercury was made by Murray Manufacturing Co, of Ohio, USA, at one stage the world’s largest bicycle manufacturer.
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It is hardly surprising, therefore, with subsequent unfolding of world events, that the launch of a fabulous new bicycle at the 1939 New Yorks World’s fair went almost unnoticed…ġ939 Murray Mercury Pacemaker – the New York Worlds Fair Model With impending doom spreading across Europe as the German war machine prepared for invasion, the contrast between life here and in America was considerable. Nevertheless, the United States was a major competitor and, in the field of automotive design, it had already overtaken Britain in the thirties with fantastic, futuristic, streamlined automobiles becoming the absolute epitome of vehicular opulence.Īmerica’s world’s fairs were a showcase for its fabulous new products, and the 1939/1940 New York World’s Fair, being the last of these events to take place before World War Two, may now be considered the greatest fair of all. British industry was in its heyday and the British Empire was the world’s greatest. The 1930s, by comparison, before the War, were seen as a time of peace and prosperity. Great Britain in the early 1950s was still recovering from the War, with bomb-sites all around, and rationing in force until 1955. My sister and I have many happy memories playing in it and reading all the books and magazines that had been left there. There were still obviously signs of this devastating war all around while I was growing up and when my parents moved to the south of England and rented a house in 1960, we discovered an air-raid shelter in the garden whose interior had been left intact from the day it was no longer needed fifteen years before.
![girls murray bike girls murray bike](https://images1.americanlisted.com/nlarge/girls_20_murray_bicycle_30_bowling_green_29580807.jpg)
I was born in 1952, seven years after the end of World War Two.