who knows what about muddyfox!

Tell us about the fabled prestige from 1988 . Sure I spotted it (stories from another member say that only 1 was assembled for the 1988 show) last year for sale. There is some dude trying to pass off a 1989 limited edition as the 1988 prestige on eBay currently.

Carl

I wish I could but I left around about that time but I do remember a bike that had a red frame and white forks, it was very lightweight. Only one of theses were made so it may be that you are talking about.
On about shows I think it was at the bike show that muddy fox got the news that they were to stop trading or something, a friend and I who also worked with me were at the show and the muddy fox stand was set up but nothing on show, not 100percent it was there stand but many people came up to me and said things like I see they have gone now and so on

Remember the slogan, muddy fox the mountain bike people. Other UK makes did exist like Saracen ridgeback and a couple of others but muddy fox had edge and lots of marketing so muddy fox did make mountain biking popular

It was not a big company and only had a few staff really who when we had a shipment in on a forty foot lorry even Ari, the owner would get involved in unloading them and so did his wife, who was a cool lady and funny as hell.

I think the red frame/white forks was a special that was the same frame as your courier fitted with exage mountain parts and was the twin of the tushingham b52. Quite rare and there are a couple on here. The prestige was an 88 bike in black with gold and faux carbon parts. Priced at 5k it was a bit of a publicity stunt and tales were that only the 1 was made for the show.

Carl

There is a red muddy fox monarch out there somewhere or was, if you look at the early adds for muddy fox the bike is stood up in a stream and a woman's back is towards the camera , this was Jackie Falange , think that's how it's spelt, the bike is in its original colours of white gold but I then owned the bike and sprayed it red
Plus it had bull handle bars like most of the others but they were alloy not cro mo as the std one had

Think it was Jackie phelan I think sinnerman was interested in that story.

Carl

Another good publicity was a club in the west end called lime lights, this was a top club with the pop stars and we done a show in there and I made friends with one of the dj's and had vip passes which was cool. A pint was about £8 I think at the time lol.

If I remember right I think that rod Stewart bought a muddy fox from us, a number of famous people rode our bikes at the time.

Re:

Seems to be some muddy Fox geeks checking in here regular ,
Could anyone tell me anything about my rock n roll crmo? I'll update with a link to pictures in a mo, any info would be good but year and what it would have had spec wise will be a massive help if possible please.

viewtopic.php?t=337082

Pictures are in that topic. Any help much appreciated.
I'm in 2 minds what to do with this steed. Depending what I find out will depend what I do with it.
Thanks in advance
Leigh

Explorer Mega

Thought I'd share a pic of my work bike a Muddy Fox Explorer Mega I was kindly given the frame & built it up from there, rides beautifully!

Re:

Steve 100's history of early Muddy Fox is mostly correct.

In about 1982, S&G (Security & General Finance) was originally a two man finance company - Ari Hadjipetrou, a Greek Cypriot accountant and Drew Lawson, a Scottish Art Director. They'd met while working in Dubai and returned to London together.

Drew and Ari in Dubai


They helped Manufrance - as has been said - makers of shotguns, sewing machines and bicycles - with finance. Ari offered to be the UK distributor for their products and for a time they did distribute all 3 products. They realised that bikes were the least troublesome to market and then focussed on the bikes.
Manufrance was partly owned or at least supported by the French Government but that support was withdrawn and Manufrance went bust so S&G Distributors, having got a foothold in the bike trade looked for another supplier. In Japan they found Araya- the rim maker and brought over a batch of their bikes.

S&G New Cavendish Street London - The offices were in the 1st floor.


Amongst the Araya range - were a few Mountain Bikes and Ari and Drew, encouraged by Greg Oxenham, who was co-owner of Bike UK, the London bike shop, made the decision to drop all the other lines and concentrate on Mountain Bikes in the hope that they'd be first and leaders in what they foresaw as a burgeoning market.
So they ordered a batch more of The Araya Mountain Bikes, initially marketing them as S&G Cycles - made by Araya and Ari promised them that they'd make Araya Bikes famous in the UK. Araya panicked at this as their major business was rims and they didn't want to lose Raleigh etc. who'd be less likely to buy from a bike competitor.
They had to come up with a new name and realised that this new market warranted a grungier name than S&G Cycles. The Araya Bikes were named as 'Fun Picnic' and other such tosh but one was called "Muddy Fox" so they picked that as their name - it sat nicely with off-road biking.
The first 1984 bikes had decals with the S&G logo and were called "S&G Cycles Muddy Fox". The Explorer, Pathfinder etc didn't actually have those names written on the bikes - there were codes instead - e.g. MB MF 26SDX (i.e. Pathfinder) - but were marketed using their arbitrary names.

Till this point the advertising comprised mostly of 1/4 page black and white ads but with the new name they went into overdrive with full colour full page ads and the marketing campaign kicked off in earnest.

Missing toes on the first Muddy Fox ad. - a teaser


1/4 page ad rewriting the dictionary


The Crossword ad


Early ads had included the paw print but someone pointed out a toe was missing so they borrowed an Old English Sheepdog, stepped it in a puddle and then a piece of paper. The logo was born.

Flyer for The Pathfinder - including the new logo


I'll stop here as I've stuff to do - if anyone's interested I can continue the story later.

P.S. Hi Steve