Falcon Defiant 26" MTB - anyone got one?

[Big Hammer]

A back garden bramble patch clearance has unearthed a long-lost 1996/97 Falcon Defiant, which was purchased new for the princely sum of £60 from a car dealer as part of some test drive promotion they were running! It's a 22" rigid frame, metallic green, horizontal top tube, welded hi-tensile job, with budget 18-speed indexed Shimano gearing, reasonable 26" alloys, and bar ends to give two riding hand grip positions. Pretty much bog standard budget 90's MTB, but a decent enough bike all the same. Better than an outright BSO in other words.
I haven't seen anyone else mention these bikes on the Forum, so I was wondering if there are many around? The head tube sticker says "Brigg", and elsewhere it says "hand built in England". The frame is nothing too exotic, but I am wondering if it was actually made here, or was a far-east import and just assembled here?. I must admit I do prefer a fully-British frame given the choice - all my Raleigh bikes have Nottingham frames from the days when they still built them in-house. It would be nice if the Falcon was similar as almost no bikes sold in the UK these days are actually built up around a British-made frame....

 

[Hotwheels.]

Built at the Falcon factory in Brigg not too far from me. Boss, Claud Butler, British Eagle, Townsend, Holdsworth, Shogun and Scorpion were also made there. Mainly low end stuff really apart from a few decent specced Claud Butlers, but they're certainly all English.

 

[Big Hammer]

Re:

Thanks, glad to hear mine was still built in-house there before everything was outsourced and bought in from overseas.
I'm well aware it's a pretty low-end spec, I got it via a friend who worked for the car dealer and I gather they were selling them on essentially at cost price as a promo rather than any attempt to turn a profit on them. It rides OK nonetheless and low value = low thief appeal - which means not stressing about leaving it out of sight like you would with anything really nice or valuable. There's a lot to be said for bikes you can just casually use without worrying about something happening to them.