1978 SCHWINN STING-RAY BX

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Rat Rod

Rat Rod

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This was a one year wonder for Schwinn.

It must have been a case of needing to get rid of the Sting-Ray frames they had around so they threw some BMX parts on and called it a "BX."

I bought this one locally several months ago and spent all of last week completely going over every square inch of it. Cleaned and repacked the Bendix hub, front hub, BB and headset with some Phil grease. The bike performs like new again. The Bendix 76 coaster hub really stops hard now. The 28 spoke S2 wheels are in superb condition and hardly needed any cleaning.

A few scratches here and there, but overall it's in really nice shape.

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Very cool bike I imagine that what many kids did to there stingrays when they wanted a bmx anyway
 
Schwinn was late to the BMX scene, and basically thru knobbies, the handlebars, and seat on a Stingray in order to grab some of that emerging market...
Soon after, they came out with the Schwinn Sting, which was more of a BMX bike, but was still heavier, and behind the technology curve compared to the competition. They really never did catch up, and even in the 80's, the Schwinn Predator wasn't nearly the bike that the Redlines, Hutches, and Diamondbacks of the time.
 
indianadave said:
Schwinn was late to the BMX scene, and basically thru knobbies, the handlebars, and seat on a Stingray in order to grab some of that emerging market...
Soon after, they came out with the Schwinn Sting, which was more of a BMX bike, but was still heavier, and behind the technology curve compared to the competition. They really never did catch up, and even in the 80's, the Schwinn Predator wasn't nearly the bike that the Redlines, Hutches, and Diamondbacks of the time.
Click to expand...

Hey, let's not forget about the Scrambler, which was introduced in '73 as a Sting-Ray with bmx parts on it, but was available as a diamond-frame by 1977 (which pre-dates the one-year only Sting-Ray BX by a year).... and, to be fair, the Sting was a very competitive and progressive bike for the time-- they were built in the Paramount division (PDG), and they were about the highest-tech BMX on the scene in '78. By the 80s, of course, they'd lost their edge; no surprise, given how Schwinn was doing at the time.

Did Schwinn drop the ball with BMX? Absolutely. They should've owned the sport, as the modified Sting-Rays from the earliest days were basically the beginning of bmx bikes. But, they came late to the party, and brought only Sting-Rays w/ bmx bits a first. The diamond Scramblers had better geometry, but the angles were too slack and the electro-forged frames weighed a ton. With the fillet-brazed chromo Sting came relatively lightweight, progressive geometry, and top-shelf quality, but the error they made with the PDG-built Sting was in pricing themselves out of the competition. In 1980, a Sting cost
$460 at the dealer ($250 for frame/fork set). Dang. The various lesser Schwinn bmx models were more affordable, but didn't have the cache or credibility of the Sting. At the same time, imported bmx bikes were taking off in a big way, offering a lot of performance for not a lot of money.... and the US-based boutique bmx companies were constantly getting bigger and taking a larger share of the market. Schwinn, as a company, couldn't keep up... but the Sting was still rad as can be.

indianadave said:
Oh, I would leave that survivor exactly as it came... Put the BMX seat back on!
Awesome find!
Click to expand...

If i know Steve, he still has that seat, probably hermetically sealed in a box, and stored in a humidor. :grin::grin: It'll go back on before he sells it. That bike is a gorgeous example of weird l'il vintage bmx anomaly. I'm lovin' it.:113:
 
I think my Scrambler is an '80---it has the gusset behind the headtube, and it's the chestnut/rootbeer color. I think it's a cool l'il bike, but i scarcely ever ride it....
 
I remember as a kid in the late 70's, there were a lot of BMX'ed Stingrays around. I never realized at the time some may have came that way from the factory. Back then I thought they were all made by the kids whose parents wouldn't buy them a new BMX. "What do you mean you need a BMX bike?!?!? We just bought you that Schwinn a couple years ago!!!" Me? Dad sold my Royce Union muscle bike for $5 and bought me a Panda.
 

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