Schwinn Paramount

The Schwinn Paramount was the high-end racing bicycle line sold under the Schwinn Bicycle Company brand from 1938 through 2009. Frank W. Schwinn introduced it in 1938 as the company's answer to professional competition bicycles, drawing on its experience sponsoring a racing team headed by the frame builder Emil Wastyn. Early frames used high-strength chrome-molybdenum steel tubing with expensive brass lug-brazed construction and were built in limited numbers in a small frame shop rather than on the main production line. On 17 May 1941 Alfred Letourneur reached 108.92 miles per hour (175.29 km/h) behind a car at Bakersfield, California, on a Paramount. Later frames used Reynolds 531 tubing and Campagnolo parts, and Paramounts were built in Waterford, Wisconsin, from 1980. The line was retired in 1994, reintroduced in 1998 and marketed until 2009.