• FACT: Bowden Spacelander bicycle was NOT designed in 1946. The bicycle designed in 1946 was the Bowden Classic (NOT "Tomorrow-Cycle") which was made of pressed aluminum in the Healey automotive facilities. The Classic had a similar look to the Spacelander but was a completely different bicycle. It was originally made for a British exposition entitled, "Britain Can Make It" and Leon Dixon owns the original films and documentation of this bicycle and the show. The Bowden Spacelander differed vastly from the Bowden Classic and was made of pressed fiberglass, designed in 1959 and produced in 1960.
• FACT: The Bowden Spacelander was introduced to collectors in issue #11 of Classic Bicycle & Whizzer News (the first newsletter ever on the classic bicycle hobby) in an article written by Leon Dixon in 1979. Leon Dixon was the first to collect Bowden bicycles and their history and started the classic bicycle hobby in the early 1970s. This article was published in 1980. It was the first ever published on the Bowden Spacelander to reveal its history and designer. This is where it all started.
• FACT: The first major magazine history of the Bowden Spacelander appeared in the April,1985 issue of CYCLIST magazine and was written by Leon Dixon. This article featured Leon Dixon's original Bowden Spacelander in color and revealed the full history of both the Classic and the Spacelander. While this article was the first of its kind, it is largely forgotten today in the trample and clamor and claims about the Bowden Spacelander. The original 1985 CYCLIST magazine article can still be seen today in the historical articles section of National Bicycle History Archive of America (NBHAA.com).
• FACT: The number of Bowden Spacelanders produced was derived from the original articles written on the bicycle by Leon Dixon. This production number did not exist elsewhere unless derived from these article, since the number of 522 was hand-tabulated by the author from the original shipping list of Bowden Spacelanders which is owned by Leon Dixon.
~~Expert~~Value 20 000 $
Facts[]
- Fact 1: Designed in 1946 by Benjamin Bowden, but was sold during the year 1960.
- Fact 2: Benjamin George Bowden was a British industrial designer, who is known mostly for his work on automobiles andbicycles. Bowden designed the Healey Elliot, an influential British sports car.
- Fact 3: In Britain, the same bike was called the "Tomorrow-Cycle."
- Fact 4: When the Spacelander was released it sold for $89.50, wich many believed was too expensive. Today, that would be equal to $1,075.00.
- Fact 5: Beginning in the 1980s, there was a resurgence of interest in the Spacelander as a collectors item. Two bicycle enthusiasts, John Howland and Michael Kaplan, purchased the rights to the Spacelander name from Bowden, and have the manufactured a small number of reproductions and replacement parts.