Hi guys and gals

I finally found time to scan and add pictures of some of the mongoose factories from both 1983-84 and on a recent trip to mecca with Rickcool.
Click here for old mongoose factory pics on www.vintagemongoose.com

That is a great collection of pics and information! Thanks...

Those photos are sooo sweet.Who occupies the latest building now? Kinda sad to see something that great that came from a dream not around as it was anymore.

moorpark is a Storage facility now and it is still in mint condition as the last 9 pics show.
We were lucky enough to get a full tour from the new owners

Outstanding job!

For a moment I felt as if Mike Brady were there with Skip designing the house and plant! That is so era surreal with the 70's influence private executive washroom (with gold paper holder) and glass ceiling executive boardroom.

I love the Death Star control room chair. Also, how did he get a Rockford trophy to hang on wall?

Awesome pics!

Skip still has the same chair in his office to this day!!

"Also, how did he get a Rockford trophy to hang on wall?"

LOL... great ideas are used more than once!!

Hey Ben, Skips office looks exactly the same to this day!!. The private washroom is still intact with all the gold fittings!!! (as of 3 weeks ago)

Wow!

How long until someone starts making those wood motomag wall clocks?

PRICELESS!!!!

Funny, I noticed the same thing....I was wondering if the roll was hung over or under.

Great pics, I'll have to go back and read more of the articles later.

Hmmm...

Skip's private washroom... LOL! Yeah, it's got some pretty gold fixtures... For sure...

More importantly IMO, do you have any pictures of you and Skip together from your visit?

Great stuff Waza. You two are doing a fantastic job preserving BMX Products history.

The Executive chair - is that a Recaro???

Yes, its Recaro and its really comfortable.

thats so cool Waza. You guys have some really cool pics there. Thanks for sharing them with us.

I had to go read this again. The clips and images are excellent. There are so many things that seem almost silly today:

* $3m for a building and could not get financing
* When Skip built this building he was the same age I am today
* A personal shower in your office. Hate to be in one of those meetings!
* Feared the distance from Simi Valley, yet it's 7.67 miles and 11 mins according to Mapquest

What a ride he had! Any input on he frame of mind when he decided to sell the company?

cool pics

Warren, your non-response leads me to believe you have no pictures with you and Skip together. That's too bad. I'm sure some people who read these forums would have liked to have seen that.

I talked with him about that over lunch soon after you left and I know why...

Let's just say Skip is a fiercley guarded and private man. He has the right to be. No worries though, I'm positive you got way more than you ever expected anyway from your brief visit. The memorabilia he gave you for vintagemongoose.com was completely unselfish of him. He gave you more than anyone else may ever get from him... Lucky you.

You actually have a responsibilty to his legacy now, in a sense. I think you're doing a good job so far. I'm just glad I was able to hook you up with him, even if it did cost me a pair of clean Simi Valley Motomag 1's in the process... LOL!

Anyhow, very few people (if anyone at all) have the level of "dedication" you have for the whole Mongoose thing and Skip recognises this. He told me so.

Keep that flame alive brother.

The Moorepark pics bring back a lot of memories. At that time I mostly hung at the office with Dave Custadero, Russ Okawa, and Kevin Jackson. My first time there right after I signed with them, I am sitting in Russ's office when I hear on his intercom the secretary tell him please bring Jason to Skip's office. I was totaly scared and excited, like being on a roller coaster climbing up the first hill. I go in and get welcomed to the company, he talked to me for a few minutes. I never thought he would want to see me personaly. I mean he has people to take care of the team and all that stuff. I thought he would be dealing with million dollar contracts and distribution and big business transactions. Not talking to a hot shot local at his first out of state race. The warehouse was really cold to me, or maybe just my Hawaiian blood.

Changstar

Mongoosedrummer, I was asked to keep Skips pics private, so i will do so till the day i have his permission to post.

For all, Rick and I are working on scanning ALL the relevant paperwork that we have been given and it will be on our website for all to see. There are many pages to scan. stay tuned.

Not sure what that means Warren... Do you mean pics of you and him together? I didn't think you had any according to Skip... Any other "Skip's pics" which he gave you, are obviously not private if they are now published on Rick's URL vintagemongoose.com... Whatever... No worries mate. Glad I could help you out with what you got anyway.

Warren and Rick great job. Mongoosedrummer thanks for hooking them up (if thats true). Your posts confuse me otherwise. Sounds like you were trashing these guys, then hugging them.

Has anyone contacted Lynn Kastan, Mike Devitt, Jim Melton or Gary Turner to do a retrospect like this?

In June 1980, I would have given my left nut to be invited to any one of these business to be a "Factory" Rider. I really enjoyed the look back.

BenOr, I was more than happy to hook Warren up with Skip Hess. He knows that already... It was my contribution to their site. Also, my interview with Cash.

BTW, to clear any confusion you might have, I don't "hug" men!!! LOL! I have a smokin' hot wife for that...

Also, if I wanted to trash someone, there would be no confusion at all believe me... Read what I said again, I gave props to the boys... I am more than happy for them. The site rocks.

Wow...Waz...You've done a great job...Thanks for sharing us!

Mongoosedrummer,

Your posts come off as a bit like sour grapes more than anything. Then you say “good job”. Hence my post about it being confusing.

Here what I want - I could careless what Warren, Rick or Skip look like today. I enjoyed the old photos - more please! Thank you for the connection between them.

On a side note I am dumbfounded at the response to “hug". Perhaps it's humor lost in text.

No worries Benny. I'm sorry you are feeling confused and/or dumbfounded. I can't really help you with any of that or your text interpretations for that matter. It's not really that important to me either.

All I can say (again) is, it's been my pleasure to ad to vintagemongoose.com by way of connecting Skip and Warren and doing an interview or two for them. BTW, I know exactly what Warren and Rick look like. We've all exchanged photos in the past. Skip included. I only mentioned it would have been cool to see a pic of Warren and Skip together because I hooked them up and they were both visiting together right before I was at Skip's place... Big deal. Is that so perplexing to you?

Lastly, I'm perfectly happy bro, no "sour grapes", "trashing" or (God forbid) "hugging"!!! Those are all your words/text... None of mine. If you want to try and "get into my head", criticize my posts or attempt to analyze me any further, feel free to go to PM. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have and try to help you with your confusion. For now, let's give the spotlight back to vintagemongoose.com on this thread... It's really all about Skip, the Goose and Warren's new material for the site anyway, not you or me...

Great stuff. Thanks Waza and Rick.

cool pics and awesome job on the site

Great Pics Guys well done all involved.
It just saddens me when i see all those frame sets on the racks and realise how many of them have ended up in landfill sites and dumps ect. I wish i had the Doc's Delorean LOL, Hindsights a wonderfull thing.

There for the last nail.

I have a short tale to tell about the final days of Mongoose, one I'm sure nobody who was around during those last days remembers - but a memory of mine shook loose by seeing the pics of the new building being put up...

I never owned a mongoose, but I lusted after one in the early days - even stole a bike with motomags at one misguided point in my youth - a deed I am still ashamed of today, 30 years later.

In 1997 or so, I responded to an ad in an industry rag for the juvenile products manager at Mongoose. I submitted my resume and received a callback for an interview, so I made the trip from AZ to CA and arrived bright and early on a Monday morning for my interview. I was early (anxious?) and the place was locked up tight, so I waited around - eventually 3 guys came up to the door so I got out and introduced myself, they said they had forgot about the interview and that I was lucky to have caught them as they had just arrived back from two weeks in Taiwan and had just stepped off the plane.

It was sort of an uncomfortable situation as I got the feeling they had completely forgot about telling me to come in. One of the guys was holding a very odd looking frame, one that had a single top-tube that formed into a V - it was like nothing else I had seen, definitely looked like Taiwan construction - I figured it was one those funky Taiwanese designs, but they seemed pretty keen to getting it out of sight as soon as possible. Me seeing this frame seemed to lend the uncomfortable situation.

So I was shown around the factory (or distribution facility - not much manufacturing going on in those days) and then was asked to go into the president's office for the interview. It was one of the guys who let me in, the one holding the frame. He seemed pretty jet-lagged, but ran me through the interview and things went well. But there didn't seem to be a lot of urgency on his part, I certainly couldn't get him nailed down on a follow up. So I split back to AZ feeling pretty good about my prospects anyway - short of not speaking Mandarin I think I had the skills to do the job - which from the sounds of things was pretty cool - manage all aspects of the juvenile brand, the Team, the design and marketing, sourcing of all products - kind of a dream gig when your a BMX guy in the bike world.

I followed up by phone and was told that things looked good, they were just waiting for the budgets hit the new fiscal year and such. But they were wondering if I could expand on some of the ideas I had presented on how to turn the brand in a positive direction, could I get started on the work... so I did.

I spent the next few weeks developing a consolidated business plan for the line. The brand was in a bad place, all they had were a line of indistinct models that were designed more around price-point than anything else and far too many of them for that matter. Almost every bike in the line was chrome with black accents and the catalog made no sense, even as a vet BMX guy I couldn't tell which bike was designed for what purpose, and the names of the bikes were just as bad.

So I cut the line by 40%, made a clear line between freestyle and racing, and brought back the Supergoose line as the top of the line bike group. I changed the colors to orange and black, and brought back the main logo of the gnarling mongoose. I brought color to the freestyle line as well, and focused on moving the line to a more dirt-jump/freestyle differentiation.

As for the teams, they were actually doing fine - just had one problem... all the promotional materials were crappy. Like posters of Fuzzy Hall riding a go-cart and hanging out, I specified that we needed to make Fuzzy and Robert McPherson garage poster heroes by showing them doing their thing - jumping and racing. The line needed to be about riding as a way of life.

I even ran into Fuzzy and Robert in Phoenix around that time, told them I was coming on board - and they were excited. I guess the BMX program was lucrative for them, but they needed change - especially after a batch of Fuzzy's bikes suffered shattered headtubes due to a poor spec in Taiwan (to save a few pennies - which later made a lot of sense).

So I submitted my plan, sent the printouts and a floppy disk with the files to them - and then ... nothing.

My calls went unanswered for weeks, I don't remember when I finally gave up - but it was probably when I read a couple months later that Mongoose had been sold to Brunswick. I knew then that I hadn't been fully informed about everything going on, but what I didn't realize right then was that I had been used and duped.

When Brunswick relaunched the line later that year, what do I see? My plan, my bikes, my logos and colors, my posters, the works on a grand scale. A backhanded compliment at best, I now knew that I had been used to make someone else look good - a small cog in the liquidation of the original BMX company. Through the dupe, my work was pawned off as an asset to seal the deal on the liquidation of the original bike brand. No chance now to turn the historic brand, man was I dejected.

Yes, I was there for the last nail in the coffin.

When I grow up I want to be just like you.

Cool Story Shawn. Sorry for the misfortune.

Waza - I lost your email. Please email as that guy emailed me back with the MM1's. Happy to hook you up.

I didn't know that Mongoose products started out with the Motomag...

Love the plush office with the mag clock..

BMX on the Benz - that plate would be worth something I think.

The sport owes a lot to Skip Hess, he had a dream and took the risks - thanks!

Two words...Skip ROCKS!

Hey guys thanks for all the compliments. Sorry I haven't been around much, but Waza and I had a great time during his USA trip and met some wonderful people that contributed to vintagemongoose.com and its museum. We are always adding more content to the site as we have a bunch of cool stuff to scan.

Look for some awesome blue prints to be added later from Skip Hess.

Rick

Hey Rick!

Glad to see you back on here! I just missed you by a few days in LA...

As you know, Skip had nothing but great things to say about you guys and your visit. I am totally amazed at the stuff he gave you. He obviously respects you very much and seems extremely proud of the work you've done. Let's face it, vintagemongoose.com has become the definitive website for all OS Mongoose fans around the world, period. The content could never be equalled, ever.

I am very grateful that you allowed me to be a small part of your incredible documentation of Skip's legacy and the history of BMX Products.

Thanks my Mongoose brother!

PS: I may be a crazy drummer prone to fits of madness, but deep down, I'm still just Pete the OS Catwalk Champ! LOL! Hope you're still practicing for our competition! My smokin' 76 is buffed and ready...

Heck, I didn't even know, my office is old school too!

Wow Stu - both Mac & PC!... I'm impressed!
Are those my DX's up on the shelf?...I thought you were posting em to me...hahahaha

Hey Waz - I have this Mongoose frame...how do work out when it was made?...LOL

ok after scoring a mongoose motomag last a couple of days ago i saw this post and checked out the vintage mongoose site. very nice,but i have a couple of questions. i see sales through the roof,nice products, hand made,quality stuff,the big move to the new 105,000 sqft warehouse with all the fancy do dads and such, that was 1984. my first real bike i got was in 1986 a mongoose fs1. i loved it. although all my friends called it junk ,they were riding gts and haros.i always thought they had to be good there were all kinds of mongooses in the movie rad. anyway im looking through my old bmx plus mags and see the location is not moorpark ,ca. wtf happed from 84-88? was the 3 million dollar new place too much to handle or were the bikes just total junk and nobody wanted them anymore? i still have a soft spot for the old mongooses and finally found an old lavender fs1 like my first bike i got . i was so happy to see it.