Kuwahara BMX

Kuwahara started exporting bicycles to the USA as private label bikes for other companies such as Schwinn, Takara, Puch, Concord, Apollo, Azuki and others. Kuwahara  had  never  produced  their  own  Kuwahara branded bike outside of Japan until 1972 when Kuwahara began  developing  BMX  bicycles  for  the  US,  Canada, European and Australian markets.  During the middle 1970’s the BMX boom had started and Kuwahara was regularly exporting Kuwahara brand BMX’s  to  these  countries.  In  1979  Takuo  Kuwahara became the new (and present) President of Kuwahara. He started up a Factory Kuwahara BMX team each in The US, Canada, Europe and Australia.

 In 1982 Steven Speilberg’s hit movie E.T. featured Kuwahara  BMX’s  and  famous  riders  of  those  days including Bob Haro. Many famous riders raced for the Kuwahara Factory teams such as Gary Ellis, Clint Miller, Joe Baumert, Dave Cullinan, Lee Medlin, Leo Green, Matt Harris and Kevin McMeale.  In 2001 Universal Studios opened an amusement park in Osaka, Japan and Kuwahara set up a small exhibition for display. With the last remaining KZ frames from the 1980’s  Kuwahara  re-released  a  limited  reproduction model in the classic E.T. colors.