Matt O'Toole writes:
>> Just received an email to the effect that "Supergo.com has closed
>> and is now part of Performance Bicycle". I know that they were
>> owned by Performance for some time, but apparently they have
>> decided to kill off the franchise. I notice that both Supergo and
>> Nashbar have been having a higher than normal number of "sales" in
>> the past year. And Nashbar seemed to be making an effort to clear
>> out lots of NOS merchandise that seemingly had been gathering dust
>> for years. I wonder if Nashbar is next for the scrap heap?
> Performance bought Supergo quite awhile ago. They were probably
> waiting for some store leases to run out, etc., before finally
> merging the two companies.
> Frankly I think it's stupid to kill such a well established brand
> name, like with the Sav-on/Osco debacle several years ago.
You think that's bad, boards of directors and CEO's make much greater
blunders in name change. In Switzerland the world famous FO (Furka
Oberalp) railway was merged with the equally famous BVZ (Brig Visp
Zermatt) to become the MGB (Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn) which has little
to do with where the RR runs. The Big red locomotives with three foot
high FO on the side were not forgotten by anyone who saw them. Not
only that, but most people still call it the FO as you see in their
URL's.
http://www.rail-info.ch/FO/index.en.html
http://www.rail-info.ch/FO/pics/9030-224.jpg
http://www.fo-bahn.ch/
Then when the equally famous BRÃœNIG railway merged with the LSE they
chose Zentralbahn as the name, one that doesn't hint at where it is.
http://www.zentralbahn.ch/downloads/Taetigkeitsbericht.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brünigbahn
To make up for that the Santa Fe and Burlington Northern were merged
to most people's satisfaction into the BNSF a great name that doesn't
wast the heritage of either of these famous railways.
http://archive.trainpix.com/BNSF/
Change of logos is more prevalent as the ATT blue disk with white
stripes becomes a clumsy distracting pseudo spherical image of that
logo, and UPS changing an elegant shield with a package ribbon as
crossbar to a smear of, who knows what, across the top.
Or most stupid, Cadillac Cars removing the six ducks from their logo
to attract younger buyers, as if anyone scrutinized the ducks before
deciding to buy or that ducks are anti-youth.
Jobst Brandt