Last ever Raleigh RSP built and other Raleigh stuff

I was wondering what the very last bike to come of the Raleigh Special Products workshop production line was ?

I've often wondered whether this was an aluminium frame or titanium or road or MTB - what frame number and whether kept by an employee.

Bikemeister2000 seems to have left the site so any one else know or have any ideas?

What date exactly did it finally cease?

And finally, should 1998 or 1999 RSP bikes be able to be included here in ---> 1997 ? As I have always associated the 1998 section with modern stuff and this section with retro and Raleigh RSP aren't modern? Or are they?

I think I Should've posted this in dynatech thread

I think a lot of the last stuff to come out of the factory was what the workers picked up after bing told they were unemployed.

Re:

Criminally underrated. Wish I had thought they were as cool then as I do now.

I was offered quite a lot of rsp stuff during the dying days.

Wish I'd have taken them up on more of the offers!

As Bimemeister2000 said, they'd still be around if we had bought them.
But Raleigh were to blame for not allowing smaller non raleigh 5 star dealers to stock and sell.

Still, would be nice to see what the last produced frames/bikes were (and frame numbers)

I believe you might... As far as I know much of the documentation held by the company relating to marketing material, sales figures, finances, board reports, production volumes etc were rescued from the factory shortly before it's scheduled demolition as Nottinghamshire County Council realised the company was an important part of the County & City's heritage, both industrial and cultural.

The recovered documentation is held in the Nottinghamshire Archives at Nottingham Central Library and can (should be, anyway..) ordered up from the archives by request. That's probably the best or most reliable source of that kind of info, or at least a starting point - if it made it as far as being collected up by the Council or donated subsequently, as there have been a few appeals for such info to be added to the archive since it was first created.

This should give you an idea of what's there - much of it just the typical records any business files in 150-odd years of operation.. http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.u ... 60&_p=1950

It would take a stroke of luck applied to some diligent searching to uncover specific frame number records, but it's not impossible that they would be in there somewhere. At least we know what year to narrow it down to!