Lotus (bicycles)

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Lotus was a brand of bicycles designed, specified, marketed and distributed by Lotus International Corp. of Syosset, New York, which had been founded by Sid and Ernst Star. The bikes were offered as a complete range, from entry level to professional models, and were manufactured by Tsunoda Bicycle Corporation of Nagoya, Japan, and subsequently by other manufacturers — including a group of mid-1980s high end models manufactured in Italy, in conjunction with Cinelli.

Lotus International marketed its bikes using an abstraction of the Lotus flower as its logo.

During the U.S. bike boom of the 1970s and into the 1980s, Lotus and Alpha Cycle & Supply competed with domestic companies including Schwinn, TREK, Huffy, and Murray; European companies including Raleigh, Peugeot and Motobecane – as well as other nascent Japanese brands including Miyata, Fuji, Bridgestone, Panasonic, Univega, Centurion and Nishiki. 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.