A BMXRacingHistory.com chapter · hosted on Legend Bike Co

Centurion Cycles

The Parent of Diamond Back — 1969 to 1990

By Bill Ryan · Founder of Supercross BMX · 37+ years in BMX · Started at SE Racing, 1981

Most BMX riders have never heard of Centurion. They know Diamond Back — one of the biggest BMX brands of the 1980s and into the 1990s. What they often don't know is that Diamond Back did not start as a standalone company. It was a BMX line launched in 1977 by the people behind a successful Japanese-built road-bike importer. That importer was Centurion. Without Centurion, there is no Diamond Back. This is that side of the story.

1969 — Mitchell Weiner, Cozy Yamakoshi, and the start of Western States Imports

The Centurion brand was created in 1969 by two people. Mitchell M. Weiner was a Southern California bicycle man who had been working as a sales agent for Raleigh. Junya "Cozy" Yamakoshi was the partner who handled the product side — designing frames, specifying parts, coordinating the build with Japanese factories, and importing the bikes into the United States.

The origin story of the brand name is well documented by bicycle historian Frank J. Berto. Weiner, working as Raleigh's sales agent, was reading Joseph Wambaugh's 1971 novel The New Centurions at the time a shipment of bikes landed without a marketing identity in place. He had Centurion decals applied to the bikes and put them out into the market under that name. The bikes sold. The brand stuck.

The corporate entity behind the Centurion brand started as Wil-Go Imports, a merger between Weiner's operation and Rick Wilson's Wil-Go of Santa Clara, California. That entity then became Western States Imports — WSI — headquartered first in Canoga Park, California, and later in Newbury Park. WSI was the company; Centurion was its main consumer brand.

The Japan years — how Centurion got built

Centurion's product strategy from the start was simple. Design and specify in California. Build in Japan. Cozy Yamakoshi managed the supply chain, and the early bikes came out of H. Teams Company of Kobe and other Japanese factories.

That model worked. Through the 1970s, Centurion built one of the deeper Japanese-import road-bike catalogs sold in the United States. The Le Mans became the brand's best-known and best-selling model, running early with hi-tension steel frames and later with Tange Champion tubing. The Pro Tour arrived in the late 1970s as a serious touring bike, with a chrome-plated Tange #2 frame and a triple crank.

Centurion's 1980s lineup eventually pushed up into the triathlon and time-trial category with the Ironman Dave Scott — built in Japan from 1985 to 1989, named after the six-time Ironman triathlon world champion.

1977 — the BMX boom, and the decision to launch Diamond Back

By the mid-1970s, BMX was no longer a Southern California curiosity. Kids across the country were racing modified Sting-Rays on dirt tracks, the early sanctioning bodies (BUMS, the NBA, the NBL) were building national membership, and the first wave of purpose-built BMX brands — Redline, Webco, SE Racing, Mongoose, Torker, JMC — were already in the market.

Western States Imports had a road-bike distribution network, Japanese factories that knew how to weld bike frames, and the business sense to see what was happening. In 1977, WSI launched Diamond Back as a BMX sub-brand. The brand started small. The first frame kits showed up at the end of 1976, with the early MX model in volume production in 1977 and 1978. Initial production ran through Jere Kirkpatrick's factory in Southern California; by 1979 the line moved to Japan and the Koizumi corporation.

The Diamond Back BMX line was not a side project. By the early 1980s it had become one of the most aggressive BMX brands in the country, with one of the deepest factory teams the sport had seen. In 1980, Sandy Finkelman of Wheels n' Things helped Diamond Back form a national race team. The roster included David Clinton (an established Diamond Back rider from the brand's earliest years), Scot Breithaupt-era contemporaries like Harry Leary, Doug Davis, Mike Horton, Aaron Stevens, and two riders who would carry the brand through the next decade: Eddy King and Pete Loncarevich.

The riders — Eddy King, Pete Loncarevich, and Matt Hadan

Three names are central to the Diamond Back race story, and therefore central to Centurion's BMX legacy.

Pete Loncarevich joined Diamond Back in September 1980 and rode for the brand through December 1982. He turned pro while under that contract. The Loncarevich-to-Diamond-Back arrangement has a small detail worth recording: Diamond Back wanted Eddy King — who had joined at the same time as Loncarevich and was two years older — to turn pro first, with Loncarevich waiting a year, because Diamond Back's priority that season was the Team Trophy (the sanctioning-body award for the strongest factory team across the national season). Pete eventually turned pro on the brand and went on to one of the most decorated careers in BMX racing.

Eddy King is the second name. He rode for Diamond Back in the same window, was part of the early-1980s Team Trophy effort, and became one of the brand's signature race-program riders. (Eddy doesn't yet have his own chapter on this site; he will.)

The third name is Matt Hadan, whose Diamond Back tenure came a few years later. Hadan rode for Diamond Back from December 1987 to early February 1991, turning professional under that contract. The Hadan-era Diamond Back was the post-Loncarevich, late-boom version of the brand — deeper product line, bigger team budget, full color magazine spreads.

That run — Loncarevich, King, Hadan, plus the supporting team across the decade — was the BMX race resume that Western States Imports built underneath the Centurion umbrella. The Centurion road bikes paid the bills. The Diamond Back race program built the cultural identity.

The mid-1980s — Diamond Back grows past the parent

By the middle of the 1980s, the BMX side of the company had become bigger than the road side. Diamond Back was getting magazine covers, factory-team contracts, and shelf space at independent bike shops across the country. Centurion was still moving real volume on the Le Mans, the Pro Tour, and the Ironman, but the cultural energy had shifted onto the BMX line.

1989 to 1990 — the China Bicycle Company acquisition and the consolidation

The corporate transition came at the end of the decade. China Bicycle Company (CBC) acquired Western States Industries in a transaction that became effective in late 1989, for the 1990 model year. CBC, looking at the brand portfolio it had just bought, made a strategic decision: rather than keep operating two parallel brands — Centurion on the road side, Diamond Back on the BMX and mountain bike side — the company would consolidate everything under one name.

The decision went to Diamond Back. So in 1990, the company began bringing the Centurion road bikes under the Diamond Back name. For a transitional year, road models carried both names — the "Diamondback Centurion" badging on models like the Centurion Master TG. In 1991, Centurion was dropped from the road bike names entirely. The US Centurion brand was done.

1991 — the Centurion name goes to Germany

The Centurion brand did not die. It moved. In 1991, the rights to the Centurion name outside North America were sold to Wolfgang Renner in Germany. Renner had been importing Centurion into Germany since 1976. Renner's company — which today operates as Merida & Centurion Germany GmbH, based in Magstadt — has carried the Centurion brand forward as a German bicycle brand. In September 2024, Merida acquired a controlling share of Renner's company for around $19 million. The Centurion name, in 2026, continues to ship product in Europe.

What happened to Western States Imports

WSI itself ceased operations in 2000, a decade after the brand consolidation. Diamond Back continued under the corporate chain that followed: in 1999, Diamond Back was purchased by the Derby Cycle Corporation, which also owned the Raleigh Bicycle Company at the time.

What Centurion actually was, for BMX

For BMX, Centurion was the corporate parent that made Diamond Back possible. Western States Imports had the distribution, the Japanese factory relationships, the marketing budget, and the appetite for a second brand. In 1977, that combination is what put a Diamond Back MX on a dealer floor for the first time. By the early 1980s, that combination is what funded a factory race team deep enough to sign Loncarevich, King, and the supporting riders. By the late 1980s, that combination is what carried Matt Hadan from amateur to pro on the brand.

Diamond Back outgrew its parent. That is rare in the bike industry — the BMX side beating the road side at its own corporate level — but it is exactly what happened. The 1990 consolidation just made the new reality official.

Sources

Wikipedia: Centurion (bicycle company); Diamondback Bicycles; Pete Loncarevich; Matt Hadan. Sheldon Brown's "Centurion Bicycles From WSI" reference page (sheldonbrown.com/centurion.html). Classic Japanese Bicycles — Centurion brand entry. VintageCenturion.com — Centurion models by year reference. BMXmuseum.com — Centurion and Diamond Back brand galleries; Diamond Back Team brand page. Diamondback Bicycles — "A Lookback At Diamondback History." dbbmx.wordpress.com — "Diamond Back BMX — The Early days, 1977-1981." 23mag.com BMX company history — Diamondback BMX. Bicycle Retailer and Industry News — "Merida buys shares in German distributor for $19 million," September 18, 2024. CapoVelo.com — "Centurion Bike Brand is Up for Grabs in the USA." Period magazine cross-references via oldschoolmags.com on the Diamond Back factory team coverage 1981-1990.

About this page. See also: The History of BMX, Diamond Back, SE Racing, GT, JMC, Redline, Mongoose, Haro, Torker, Schwinn, CW Racing, Hutch, Skyway, Hoffman Bikes, S&M Bikes, Webco, TW BMX, CRD, Bottema Forks, Hustler, Voris Dixon Bikes, Hyper Bikes, Hi-Tech BMX, Panda Racing Products, Robinson Racing, Free Agent, White Bear, Rebel Racing, Titan BMX, Brian Scura / BS Bikeworks. Sanctions: BUMS, NBA, NBL, ABA, IBMXF, USA BMX. Riders: Scot Breithaupt, Perry Kramer, Stu Thomsen, Greg Hill, Mike Miranda, Eddie Fiola, Tommy Brackens, Pete Loncarevich, Matt Hadan, R.L. Osborn, Todd Anderson, Denny Davidow, Clint Miller, Jeff Bottema, Damian Fulton, Billy Griggs, Darwin Griffin, Brian Bogi Givens, Todd Steen, Martin Aparijo.