what Chris says is quite right - there were sold under several names Verlicchi themselves as the Italian Manufacturer, Kona Iron Horse and a couple of other US makes put their name to them under licence to Verlicchi. They were quite an advanced piece of kit (at the time), and Cindy and a few others won the world down-hill series on them in the mid-90s. By today's 'travel' standards they are considered a x-country machines not a downhiller! - but did the job and looked totally different at the time, and spawned a quofew copies. Kona and others sold them so as not to miss out on the fast-growing interest in downhill bikes (until that is they'd had time to develop their own a year or two later). I always wanted the polished & anodised blue one, but anodised purple was the next best thing (and the only other option at the time if one wanted the Kona branded version). The good old days or MTBing when bikes were bikes (and bloomin' pricey for what you got by today's standards)! But seriously progress in the MTB world has been good in recent years, but there's still a place for remissing about how it all started - and the Verliccihi/Kona FS was leader of the mass-production pack for a short while in the very early days of Full Suspension.