자전거 역사에 한 획을 그은 좋은 회사였습니다...

일제입니다 프랑스제가 아니라...^^;...시마노의 영업 전략에 의해 망한 회사이지요

결과적으로 썬투어의 기술력을 시마노가 영업전략으로 거져 먹었죠..

그래서 오늘날의 시마노가 있는 거구요...

샥은 전혀 상관 없는 다른 업체 제품이랍니다.

"SR" SUNTOUR 와는 별개의 회사로 알고 있습니다만...^^;

"SR" SUNTOUR 는 87년도에 설립된 회사군요...ㅎ

윗 사진의 디레일러는 70년대 것이거든요...

Origin of the SunTour company

The Maeda Iron Works Company was founded by Shikanosuke Maeda in 1912 in Kawati-Nagano. Maeda made freewheels and sprockets for bicycles and agricultural machinery. Maeda was owned by the Maeda and Kawai families. A few months later, Maeda moved to Sakai. The original sprockets and freewheels were called 8.8.8.

It was a good time to start a bicycle component business. WW-I ended bicycle imports into Japan. Osaka was a center of Japan's small arms production. After WW-I, many of the Japan's newly established small arms factories started producing bicycles. Similar swords-to-plowshares transitions took place in Saint Etienne, France and Birmingham, England.

In 1931, Mr. Taizo Kumagai married Shikanosuke Maeda's daughter and changed his name to Taizo Maeda.

During WW-II, Maeda Iron Works merged with eleven other small factories. The new company was called Toa Seiki Kosakusho. Taizo Maeda was elected President. The merged company was taken over by the Japan's military government in 1943. It became a subsidiary of the Kure Military Factory and produced ammunition.

On July 10, 1945, a major B-29 raid on Osaka burned out the Maeda factory. The factory was rebuilt after VJ Day and by 1946, 58 employees were producing freewheels at prewar volumes. Twenty-five year-old Junzo Kawai joined Maeda Iron works in 1946. He moved ahead rapidly and became President when Taizo Maeda passed away in 1975.

At the end of WW-II, there were about 7 million bicycles in Japan. The Japanese bicycle industry was centered in Osaka, which had been heavily bombed. The industry slowly rebuilt after WW-II. There was a large demand for basic one-speed bicycles to provide transportation for a Japanese population that had few motor vehicles and little money for gasoline.

Japan's pre-war experience with multi-geared bicycles had been with British Sturmey Archer and BSA three-speed hub gears. Very few derailleur bicycles were imported into Japan in the early years after WW-II.

In 1949, Junzo Kawai visited Europe. He brought back samples of freewheels and derailleurs. He concluded that Maeda should make derailleurs and multi-speed freewheels.

The company name changed from Toa Seiki back to Maeda Iron Works in 1949.

By 1950, Maeda Iron Works had 122 employees and annual sales of about forty million yen ($110,000).