The Manta Racer Project: Manta Ray II

[ParkRNDL]

Alternate reality check: What if Schwinn would have tried to make some changes to the Manta Ray to boost its sales instead of killing it off in 1972? Maybe it would have looked something like this in the 1973 Schwinn catalog:

(that's my daughter's boyfriend, big thanks to him for playing along)

Of course, if Schwinn had really built a Manta Ray II, it would be listed in contemporary collectors’ books such as Geoff Greene’s excellent Sting Rays and Muscle Bikes of the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on this book for inspiration, I wrote an entry for the fictional Manta Ray II. If you happen to have the book, the format will look familiar to you:

Now that I’ve fabricated a history for the Manta Ray II, here it is:

Special thanks to the guy who organizes our group rides for the tires. I was fully expecting to just roll with the gumwalls that were on it. The Slik makes a huge visual difference. Thanks also to @RustySprockets for helping me with some bits to make the brakes whole.

For reference, this was the starting point:

Click here for build thread

 

[KJV]

Nice Work.

 

[OddJob]

DiG iT~!

 

[Dizzle Problems]

That’s awesome man! Really dig the chain guard, came out great!

 

[kingfish254]

That turned out sweet! Great story too.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

The "fabricated" history really puts this build over the top!

 

[furyus]

Love the presentation with the Schwinn advert and the presumed history. Fantastic. You gotta be doing some art on the side (or the front) to pull those off. And that’s not to mention the bike itself. Super cool, and tempting me horribly, because I know it’s way faster and more comfortable than my ‘65. Great job all the way around, ParkRNDL. Love the bike.

furyus

 

[ParkRNDL]

Love the presentation with the Schwinn advert and the presumed history. Fantastic. You gotta be doing some art on the side (or the front) to pull those off. And that’s not to mention the bike itself. Super cool, and tempting me horribly, because I know it’s way faster and more comfortable than my ‘65. Great job all the way around, ParkRNDL. Love the bike.

furyus

Thank you. I wondered if the ad/catalog page would come off as too cheesy. I have to admit it came out even better than I thought it would. Don't be fooled, though; there was no fancy Photoshop or other special graphics software involved. It was put together in Google Slides, the same free app that I teach my middle school students to use to create their mostly-plagiarized Science and Social Studies projects. The red Schwinn script was found in a Google search, but the rest of the print is fonts readily available in the program. Once I had a screen grab of it, I ran it through two different filters that are built into the Windows Photos program to make it look old and grainy, et voila.

The layout design was just a copy of this:

As far as the history page, I have been chewing on that since I got the bike in November. I kept having to revise it to fit the parts I had on hand. I'm sure any hardcore Schwinn fanatic worth his 26 TPI axle nuts could shoot a million holes in it, but I had fun slinging it together.