Triumph in 1968, Kawasaki by 1970: An Industry Collapsing on T-Shirts
Posted by Jon on
The oldest work in these boxes isn’t rock and roll. It’s machinery.
Before Roach Studios printed a single cartoon character, they were selling to people who cared about engines — and because several of those sheets carry dates, they’re the foundation of everything we can prove about the company.
1968: Asphalt Animal
One of the earliest Roach-dated sheets we hold, and the name alone tells you the audience. Not a brand, not a licence — an attitude, sold to riders.
1968: Triumph. 1969: BSA
Both British marques, and this is the historically interesting part. In 1968 Triumph and BSA still mattered in America. Within five years both were in serious trouble, and by the end of the seventies the British motorcycle industry had effectively collapsed under Japanese competition.
These sheets sit right at the top of that curve. Somebody printed them because they were what riders wanted on their chest. A few years later, nobody would have bothered.
1970–1973: the Japanese arrive
Kawasaki, dated 1970. Suzuki and Bultaco, 1973. Honda. Then Yamaha — and one Yamaha sheet is attributed not to Roach but to a printer called Vortex:
The only Vortex sheet in the entire holding. One of exactly three printer names we’ve been able to identify.
1973: Harley
We hold four Harley designs, one dated 1973 — the AMF years, when the company was struggling and the faithful were loudest about it.
Read as a set
Line the dates up and you get the entire realignment of the motorcycle market, printed on t-shirts as it happened. British twins in 1968 and 1969. Japanese machines from 1970. Harley holding on in 1973. Dirt bikes and moto-X taking over by the mid-seventies.
Nobody at Roach thought they were documenting an industry. They were selling to whoever walked into a bike shop.
If you sold transfers into motorcycle shops — a different trade from the mall stores, we suspect — we’d like to hear how that worked: irononstation@gmail.com
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