Centurion (bicycle company)

Western States Import Co. Inc.

Founded	circa 1969 (ceased in 2000)
Headquarters	Camarillo, California and Newbury Park, California (later location)
Key people	Mitchell M. Weiner, Co-founder Junya (Cozy) Yamakoshi, Co-founder, Product Development

Centurion was a brand of bicycles created in 1969 by Mitchell (Mitch) M. Weiner and Junya (Cozy) Yamakoshi,^[1] who co-founded Western States Import Co. (WSI) in Canoga Park, California (initially Wil-Go Imports) to design, specify, distribute and market the bicycles. The bikes themselves were manufactured initially in Japan by companies including H. Teams Company of Kobe and later in Taiwan by companies including Merida. The Centurion brand was consolidated with WSI's mountain bike brand DiamondBack in 1990. WSI ceased operations in 2000.

Centurion and WSI competed in the U.S. against domestic and European bicycle manufacturers including Schwinn, Raleigh, Peugeot, Gitane and Motobecane — as well as other nascent Japanese bicycle brands including Miyata, Fuji, Bridgestone, Panasonic, Univega, Lotus and Nishiki — itself a line of Japanese-manufactured bicycles that were specified, distributed and marketed by West Coast Cycles — a U.S. company similar to WSI. Japanese-manufactured bikes succeeded in the U.S. market until currency fluctuations in the late 1980s made them less competitive, leading companies to source bicycles from Taiwan.

WSI marketed the Centurion brand of road and touring bicycles in the United States using the tag line "Where Centurion leads, others must follow" and "A Lifetime Bicycle", offering a warranty without time limit. For a brief period the bikes carried a "Centurion Bicycle Works" headbadge.

The German company Centurion ^[de], which still exists, imported Centurion bikes from Japan to Germany from 1976 on and bought the name-rights in 1990.