mcwont
Julie and Paughco Primary
I met Ron Paugh on our first buying trip to Southern California in the fall of 1969. A real biker, he had joined his fathers manufacturing business and convinced him to make obsolete Harley parts that had been discontinued by the then struggling factory. Read the history of Paughco Inc. here www.paughco.com/2008-catalog/indivpages/Paughco%20About%2... We bought almost one of everything they made on that day and soon had a profitable source for parts other than AEE Choppers. Ron knew of Derek Whitehead and Santee Industries through their mutual client Gary Bang. After we became distributors for Santee, Ron offered us a distributorship also and we were the first to display Paughco products at the Cincinnati Powersports Dealer show in January 1972. I knew Ron's mother and father well as they still ran the company. Paughco purchased the old Keystone Wheels facility in North Hollywood and moved the manufacturing there, doing their own in house chrome plating for the first time. Later, when California regulations made chrome plating extremely expensive and difficult, the company was moved to Nevada. In 1974 Paughco made a business decision to withdraw all distributorships and sell directly to dealers themselves. This resulted in many of their best selling products being copied in Taiwan. We lost half our catalog inventory and 1974 would be our last issue and the beginning of the decline of our sales to dealers around the country. Not wanting to import directly, we continued to buy from Paugcho as a dealer and instead expanded our retail stores by opening a third location in Fresno, CA in January 1975.
Photograph of Julie taken by John Reddick on January 10,1974. Scanned from a 35 year old 35mm negative.
Julie and Paughco Primary
I met Ron Paugh on our first buying trip to Southern California in the fall of 1969. A real biker, he had joined his fathers manufacturing business and convinced him to make obsolete Harley parts that had been discontinued by the then struggling factory. Read the history of Paughco Inc. here www.paughco.com/2008-catalog/indivpages/Paughco%20About%2... We bought almost one of everything they made on that day and soon had a profitable source for parts other than AEE Choppers. Ron knew of Derek Whitehead and Santee Industries through their mutual client Gary Bang. After we became distributors for Santee, Ron offered us a distributorship also and we were the first to display Paughco products at the Cincinnati Powersports Dealer show in January 1972. I knew Ron's mother and father well as they still ran the company. Paughco purchased the old Keystone Wheels facility in North Hollywood and moved the manufacturing there, doing their own in house chrome plating for the first time. Later, when California regulations made chrome plating extremely expensive and difficult, the company was moved to Nevada. In 1974 Paughco made a business decision to withdraw all distributorships and sell directly to dealers themselves. This resulted in many of their best selling products being copied in Taiwan. We lost half our catalog inventory and 1974 would be our last issue and the beginning of the decline of our sales to dealers around the country. Not wanting to import directly, we continued to buy from Paugcho as a dealer and instead expanded our retail stores by opening a third location in Fresno, CA in January 1975.
Photograph of Julie taken by John Reddick on January 10,1974. Scanned from a 35 year old 35mm negative.