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The Packard Cormorant bicycle ornament you see here was originally known as a "Buglar" by its maker, in Illinois. You can find the original literature for this one in posting #21 of this Packard Bikes thread. Our exact ornament would have been called a "Buglar with short base." You can find longer bases on this same ornament listed as "tall base" (more ridges on the base) in posting #21.

Now for a slight sideways glance at Packard bicycles...

While completing a second history (we did the first for TPC in 1984) of the wild experimental Packard Panthers that Packard Club members will hopefully see this year in The Packard Cormorant magazine, some thoughts. I figured some Panther fans might like to know that there were also Panther bicycles. One company in Germany made bicycles under that name for over seventy-five years. Also Schwinn bicycle company had a model named "Panther" (yes, we have one) they released in 1950. That series continued for several years.

The bicycles– especially the German-built Panthers were incredibly wild tour-de-forces of advanced technology. Shaft-driven with eccentric pedaling, multi-speed gearing and more, these bicycles were mind-blowers by the dawn of the 1950s. As for the Schwinn-built Panthers, they were sleek, beautiful and could be decked out with amazing options like drum brakes, key-locking spring fork, amazing colors and paint jobs (ours is Schwinn Maroon with red trim and chrome fenders).

Thought some of you who like Packard bicycles might also find this Panther bicycle original photo (taken in 1950) and our matching desktop Panther bicycle ornament of interest.

Happy New Year.

Wow! Although I have two shaft-driven motorcycles, I’ve never seen a shaft-driven bicycle.

They exist here and there. The problem is twofold: gears actually operate at a lower efficiency than a chain drive; at the same time, the tolerances required of the drivetrain are much greater, increasing cost and weight.

The main benefits of gears, that being great power transmission in a small space, and quiet operation, are irrelevant at the scale of a bicycle.

These problems can be avoided when you package the gears into a geared hub with simple straight cut gears, but not for a drive shaft with 2 sets of bevel gears.

I believe some of the Pierce Arrow bikes had a shaft drive.

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I know that someone in the Chicago region of the Packard Club recently did a presentation about vintage bicycles. And there was the obligatory mention of "Pierce-Arrow" bicycles and shaftdrive. The bicycle that was shown was actually a Pierce "Pan American" (another name familiar to Packard folks, huh?). Yes, Pierce Cycle Company and many other bicycle companies indeed made shaft-driven bicycles. This was in the latter 1800s/early 1900s.

However, unless one is talking about what we call "Pierce Pretenders" (modern bicycles private-labeled "Pierce-Arrow" by a bicycle dealer), there was no such thing as a "Pierce-Arrow" bicycle. No matter what museums, clubs and "experts" may say. The company operated by George N. Pierce was the "Pierce Cycle Company." They made bicycles and motorcycles under the "Pierce" name, but never "Pierce-Arrow." The Pierce-Arrow name was reserved exclusively for the automobile of that name. Attaching that name to bicycles is a common, but erroneous and mythical practice.

By the way, yours truly knew Phil Wright, the designer of the wild and futuristic Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow cars. Phil hand-drew a car for me that I still have.

As for the shaft-drive and bicycles? Most of the precision beveled gears manufactured for this type of bicycle were made by the Leland-Falconer company. Who was Henry Leland? I... reallllly was expecting the bicycle presenter to go here (especially when they started talking about links between cars and bicycles)... but no. So you can ask yourselves, huh? AND... there did not seem to be any mention of PACKARD bicycles during the presentation... which I was expecting to hear.

With over 80,000 original bicycle catalogues, books and photographs, National Bicycle History Archive of America contains most of the Pierce Cycle Company catalogues and a lot of the information, photos, etc. about the company and the bicycles they made. And the successor company (in Angola, New York) as well.

Dare I say it? Yours truly has owned many shaft-driven bicycles over the years. Many. Among these were three experimental 1930s Sears Elgin "Robin"prototypes– one of which now resides in a museum (with that museum absurdly claiming the celebrity person I sold it to after I restored it somehow did it!). Don't think the museum ever got around to correcting the signage after several years. Why? They can't celebrity name-drop by telling the truth, so who am I?

The last shaftdrive bicycle I bought was in the 1980s. It was a brand-new German-made Fendt and featured gas-shock rear suspension and multi-speed rear hub along with whitewall tires, headlight, tail light, built-in tool kit and more. My buddy, the late John Bond (formerly of Road & Track magazine) and I bought a pair of Fendts out of the factory in Europe and had them shipped to California. Mine (still have it) is deep metallic black cherry maroon. I wrote a pictorial history of this bicycle in the 1980s for Cyclist magazine (now defunct). You can look it up on NBHAA.com "Historical Articles" section. No idea what ever happened to John's shaftdrive Fendt... but I sure miss sitting up late at night and chatting on the phone with John about bicycles and cars!