home

Navigation

 

Many of the old Dutch brands are not remembered any more, which doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't play an important role in their time. However, in choosing which brands to describe in more detail on the following pages, the most important criterion was that they still had to be well-known and still could be seen in relevant numbers on the streets today. Even though they may be a B-brand of some manufacturer now.

     It is remarkable that these 15 selected brands are not equally spread over the whole country. Most of these companies were originally based in one of the relatively lightly populated Northern and Eastern provinces. This is shown on the map at the bottom of this page. From there you can forward to a description of the brand of your choice.

     In the table shown below you find an overview of the beginning and the end of several relevant Dutch bicycle companies.

 

year of establishment (e) or the beginning of the bicycle production (p) company, place year of discontinuation of the (independant) bicycle production reason of discontinuation
1868 (e)
1870 (p)
Burgers, Deventer 1961 take-over by Pon
1871 (e)
1885 (p)
Fongers, Groningen 1961 take-over by Phoenix
1884 (e) Cyrus, Venlo 1971 bankruptcy
1886 (e)
c. 1893 (p)
Eysink, Amersfoort 1953 almost bankrupt, continuation as a sole builder and seller of motorized vehicles
1887 (e)
1890 (p)
Simplex, Amsterdam 1965 production moved to Juncker, Apeldoorn
1897 (e) Gruno, Winschoten 1968 closed, after being moved and mergered
1898 (e)
1924 (p)
Juncker, Apeldoorn 1968 take-over of Juncker, Locomotief and Simplex by Gazelle
1898 (e)
191x (p)
Durabo, Woudenberg 1983 liquidation
1898 (e)
1930 (p)
Pon, Amersfoort 1985 bankruptcy, take-over by Union
1892 (e)
1899 (p)
Gazelle, Dieren - -
1894 (e)
1904 (p)
Germaan, Meppel 1963 take-over by Phoenix
pre-1900 a workshop, turned into a factory in 1913 Bato, Tiel 1958 take-over by Batavus
1902 (e)
1929 (p)
Locomotief, Amsterdam 1952 merger with Simplex
1904 (e)
1911 (p)
Union, Dedemsvaart 2005 brand name is sold, production is separated from brand
1904 (e)
c. 1907 (p)
Batavus, Heerenveen - -
1904 (e)
1917 (p)
Phoenix, Leeuwarden 1970 take-over of Phoenix, Fongers and Germaan (PFG) by Batavus
1908 (e) Veeno, Bedum 1967 bankruptcy
1895 (e)
1923 (p)
Magneet, Weesp 1969 brand name and production sold to Batavus
1910 (e)
192x (p)
Mustang, Assen 1985 liquidation
1913 (e)
1919 (p)
Empo, Vorden 1979 bankruptcy, take-over by Pon
1914 (e) Maxwell, Amsterdam 1962 liquidation
1917 (e)
c. 1920 (p)
Sparta, Apeldoorn - (1999 take-over by Accell)
1917 (e) Primarius, Meppel 1964 liquidation
c. 1920 (e) Eroba, Echt 2005 company no longer exists after a series of insolvencies
1921 (e) RIH, Amsterdam - -
1844 (e)
c. 1930 (p)
RS Stokvis, Rotterdam 1968 cycle works were closed down
1922 (e)
1954 (p)
Kaptein, Amsterdam/Arnhem about 1963 contracted out to PFG and in 1966 to Union (Unikap)
1939 (e) Burco, Amsterdam 2004 sold to Accell (Batavus)
1945 (e) Cové, Blerick - -
1948 (e) Rivel, Surhuisterveen 1993 take-over by Union

 

As a special you can find the history of the Thunderjet Cycleworks here.

 






Click in the map
on the brand you
are interested in.
Please note that
not all of the links
are working yet!

 

Copyright by Herbert Kuner, © 1999 ...
All rights reserved.

back

Last update: 08/23/2020