when did GT 1st produce forks ? Options

[Mr. Smith]

Thanks for reading.

The other day I purchased a early GT package off of eBay.
The owner dated the frame as 1980 w/ serial number posted as #68325.

Decals are the Anaheim ones.

Per his write up on eBay / musuem he stated GT did not produce their own forks until late 1980.
As per this the package I bought has some other Laguna or Tange copy forks on it.
All of the other parts included look to be originals.

So my million dollar question is when did GT 1st produce forks ?

Did they 1st sell frames without forks and then later produce forks ?

So far I haven't been able to find much valid documentation backing the production of forks.
Just peoples opinions from other sites.

I figured if I wanted a valid explanation I'd come here to vintage ! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Rob

[MarkMc]

Rob,

Just found an October 1980 GT ad. Just a frame, no fork. I'll look up a few more.

September of 1980, another ad, no pictures, says, "Frames and Forks"

By June of 1981, pictures of forks on the ad.....

Generally, pull 90 days off the cover date to hit the "ad to the magazine" window. So, At this point, Q1 1981 they were available for pictures. By late 1980, appear to be at least worth mentioning in ads.

That should be enough to dial it in a bit?

This post has been edited by MarkMc: Oct 3 2012, 09:22 PM

[Mr. Smith]

Thanks heaps !

As the seller his screen name on the musuem "glassguy" states in the musuem the serial number is #68325.

How do I even know this is a 1980 ?

It could even be 1979 as Gary Turner made his Gary Turner frames ending in 1978.

Quite a unique point of discussion. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Worse case scenerio I need to find a set of non drilled chrome forks to be dead on.

Much less rare than a set of GJS forks, that's for sure. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Rob