Mongoose "Big Daddy" Muscle Bike on EBay?

[wheelbender6]

First time I have seen one of these. Pretty cool.
"Mongoose Big Daddy Don Garlits Muscle Bike rare like Schwinn Krate Stingray. Condition is "like New". Shipped with Flat Rate Freight.

This is the story I was told when I bought the bike. In the late 90's mongoose and hall of fame drag racer Don Garlits came to terms on this big daddy mongoose muscle bike they were sued for copying the schwinn krate and had to destroy all the bikes except for the few that were purchased. This bike still has the tags on it in like new condition a beautiful rare muscle bike.
You will most likely never see another and if by the slight chance you do see one. It will not be in like new condition."

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mongoose-B...276657?hash=item5b876fd331:g:-WoAAOSwdWJgFHgW

 

[mikeeebikey]

Neat story, actually saw 1 before at the museum which has since closed.

 

[wheelbender6]

Neat story, actually saw 1 before at the museum which has since closed.

Aw Fudge! I was looking forward to seeing the Big Daddy museum on my next trip to FL.

 

[macncheese]

Weird, I get that there's a similarity but not any more than any other big/little wheel bike? It has twist shifters and V brakes!? On the other hand, I see what people advertise their Bratz bikes as....

 

[wheelbender6]

The government outlawed stick shifters in the 1970s due to safety concerns. Even the latter Stingrays came with thumb shifters.
I agree with you about the brakes. I would have liked to have seen drum brakes, but that would increase the price by one hundred bucks or so.
If they hadn't used a schwinn styled springer fork on the front, they may have been able to avoid the lawsuit that shut them down.

 

[macncheese]

The price of this thing is nuts. What's it made out of, bitcoin?

 

[Kevin B]

Neat story, actually saw 1 before at the museum which has since closed.

Are you sure Garlit's museum closed?

 

[mikeeebikey]

Are you sure Garlit's museum closed?

I thought I read that they'd closed but I just looked them up and they're open till 5!

 

[Kevin B]

Wow, I'm glad. I love that place. They probably were closed for the pandemic. Glad he reopened. So many of the places that closed will never reopen.

 

[Oldbikeguy1960]

I have trouble with that story, some verification from the Garlits museum on the fate of the bikes would help
The Schwinn Girder/Springer fork was already being copied and sold by Pyramid and a couple other manufacturers. They are not exact copies, and Schwinn is not the only company to use that design. I have a fork from a 1950s bike, I think a Monark that is a girder/springer style fork and Schwinn to my knowledge never stopped them from using it. That was the heyday of Schwinn suing other manufacturers for copying their ideas, from cantilever frames to Whizzer using those designs to produce their own frames cutting Schwinn out of the equation. (That is how Schwinn hired Ray Burch away from Whizzer, and they settled out of court on use of the frame.)
A lot of old ballooners had tanks, but nobody sued anyone else and forced the destruction of an entire line of bikes.
Roadmaster built an all chrome Krate style bike called Bling Bling around that same time. Photos of it and similar bikes as well as another blue Big Daddy and comments courtesy of BMX Museum are included below.
If it were the subject of a lawsuit and had to be scrapped why just that one model. All these are still out on the curb occasionally.
Besides Pacific Cycle owns almost every bike manufacturer we ever knew of, Schwinn and Mongoose included. So they basically sued themselves? And forced the destruction of their own assets? Ludicrous at best, outright fabrication more likely.
I think it was hype to try to justify the insanely high price of a bike that to me is maybe one or two steps above the Bratz Bikes
I have been mistaken before.