Manufacturing quality as well as the technical standard of the Roadmaster bicycle line - once the pride of the company - had fallen to an all-time low. BMX bikes, mopeds and exercise bicycles were introduced in the 1970s.Īfter two decades of consistent growth, the AMF Wheel Goods Division stalled under the long-distance management of a parent company bogged down in layers of corporate management and marginally profitable product lines. The company produced over 100,000 miniature Mustangs for Ford Motor Company late in the 1960s. Products manufactured there were children's vehicles, sidewalk bikes, toy autos, tricycles, garden tractors, seat cars and wagons and playground equipment. In 1962, the company moved its operations to Olney, Illinois, where it built a new factory on a 122-acre (0.49 km 2) site that would remain the company's principal bicycle manufacturing location into the 1990s. As two-wheeled bicycles increased in popularity a new plant was built in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1951. As demand for bicycles continued to expand, the company found the need for a new manufacturing facility to keep up with demand. Taking advantage of the increase in its target markets in the aftermath of the baby boom, AMF was able to diversify its product line, adding exercise equipment under the brand name Vitamaster in 1950. The new plant was heavily automated and featured more than a mile of part conveyor belts in six separate systems, including an electrostatic spray painting operation. In 1953, after a labor strike, AMF moved bicycle manufacturing from the UAW-organized plant in Cleveland, Ohio to a new facility in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1950, after purchasing the Roadmaster line of children's and youth bicycles from the Cleveland Welding Company, AMF entered the bicycle manufacturing business with its newly formed AMF Wheeled Goods Division. Roadmaster Bicycles were first introduced by the Cleveland Welding Company in 1936.
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