NOS OUTLAND VPP3

[patersondj]

Re: wow

these are from that great era of cnc coolness!! that's a great piece of history!!


the little pivots under bb remind me of amp research pivot setup!


darren

 

[CAPIN]

Its very cool Darren, What i was surprised was how thin and elegant upper stays are in real. Considering this company was new to the game, the level of design on those machined parts is very high. Evev when comparing it to much older and bigger companies of that time. Guy who designed it for Outland knew what he was doing for sure.

 

[ti_pin_man]

Re:

My recollection is rubbish, old age yada yada but I recall Outland were an engineering design company and I think they sold the designs onto other companies the main one being Santa Cruz. I don't think they were ever expecting to become a big bike company and manufacture and hence the folding... but I could be completely wrong.

 

[patersondj]

Re: vpp future

I don’t think your far from the truth..I just remember that the big asshole S brand “closing loose ends“ on their dropout pivot patent (they brought from AMP RESEARCH ) and basically fcuking over the small guys making cool shit over... GT made the idrive basicaly because of the patent infringement...

 

[aguycalled80]

Re: Re:

My recollection is rubbish, old age yada yada but I recall Outland were an engineering design company and I think they sold the designs onto other companies the main one being Santa Cruz. I don't think they were ever expecting to become a big bike company and manufacture and hence the folding... but I could be completely wrong.

This BIKE article hits the main points that I recall - very unusual bike, but very expensive, and broke easily. Didn't really go anywhere, and eventually sold the patents to Santa Cruz for the Blur, and Intense for the Spider.

https://www.bikemag.com/blog/web-monkey ... rry-right/

I also recall the designers being from Calgary, Alberta, Canada - but, I don't know where I got that from.

Super cool score though.

 

[CAPIN]

Re:

Thanks for link aguycalled80.
Its funny. When looking Santa Cruz and considering its today value and perceived heritage, one would compare it to other brands like Intense, Ibis, Yeti..
But in fact, Santa Cruz totally built itself only AFTER buying Outland VPP patent.
In 90s Santa Cruz was nobody.
Tazmon was terrible looking bike. Chameleon, Heckler came later, but it was not enough to create buzz around that brand.
In the second half of nineties, Intense was huge. Ibis was cool and quirky. Yeti was big. Mountain Cycle was big, Foes was mostly DH, but big aswell.
But even smaller companies like Ventana, Turner, Ellsworth had much more going and stronger market presence than Santa Cruz. At least thats how i remember it.
Ofcourse all that changed after genious aquisition of VPP. I always wondered why Santa Cruz share the patent with Intense from the start, but now i think i understand.
Since Santa was basically nobody and technology was new, weird and failed in some sense, they in fact needed some credible brand to persuade people that VPP is real deal.