Because the bikes had all been intended as Raleigh Grand Prix models, as Centurions, they carried the colors of the Raleigh America Grand Prix model.Д¬ozy Yamakoshi served as the company's product development manager, designing the bike's frames, coordinating the manufacture of the bikes by Japanese manufacturers, and importing the bikes into the US. Raleigh's sales agent, Mitchell Weiner, who was reading The New Centurions at the time, took receipt of the bikes, placed Centurion decals on the bikes and marketed them successfully, subsequently forming Western State Imports after merging with Rick Wilson's company, Wil-Go of Santa Clara, California. Raleigh America ordered 2,000 bicycles from Tano and Company of Osaka but their parent company in England, TI-Raleigh, disapproved - concerned that the Tano-built bikes were too well made and would have outsold their own British bikes. Berto, Raleigh Industries of America had been looking at a Japanese source for their Grand Prix model. The German company Centurion, which still exists, imported Centurion bikes from Japan to Germany from 1976 on and bought the name-rights in 1990.ДЄccording to Frank J. For a brief period the bikes carried a 'Centurion Bicycle Works' headbadge. WSI marketed the Centurion brand of road and touring bicycles in the United States using the tag line 'Where Centurion leads, others must follow' and 'A Lifetime Bicycle', offering a warranty without time limit. market until currency fluctuations in the late 1980s made them less competitive, leading companies to source bicycles from Taiwan. Japanese-manufactured bikes succeeded in the U.S. against domestic and European bicycle manufacturers including Schwinn, Raleigh, Peugeot, Gitane and Motobecane - as well as other nascent Japanese bicycle brands including Miyata, Fuji, Bridgestone, Panasonic, Univega, Lotus and Nishiki - itself a line of Japanese-manufactured bicycles that were specified, distributed and marketed by West Coast Cycles - a U.S.

WSI ceased operations in 2000.Д¬enturion and WSI competed in the U.S. The Centurion brand was consolidated with WSI's mountain bike brand DiamondBack in 1990. Teams Company of Kobe and later in Taiwan by companies including Merida. The bikes themselves were manufactured initially in Japan by companies including H. (WSI) in Canoga Park, California (initially Wil-Go Imports) to design, specify, distribute and market the bicycles. Weiner and Junya (Cozy) Yamakoshi, who co-founded Western States Import Co. Junya (Cozy) Yamakoshi, Co-founder, Product DevelopmentД¬enturion was a brand of bicycles created in 1969 by Mitchell (Mitch) M.

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