1966 Rockford Bridgestone Makes Harry the Biggest Ladies’ Man in Miami

After Honda started importing the revolutionary Super Cub to the United States in 1959, small, nimble motorcycles went mainstream in a big way here. By the middle 1960s, even trashy drive-in films featured hoodlums terrorizing the countryside on two-digit-displacement bikes.

Naturally, competition sprang up immediately. Bridgestone Tire of Japan began importing rebadged Mitsubishi Silver Pigeon scooters through Rockford Motors in Illinois, then sent Japanese engineers over to design a new motorcycle with a 90cc two-stroke engine.

This was the Bridgestone 90 Sport, and this full-page magazine advertisement shows a Miami Beach ladies' man, Harry, giving a comely young maiden a ride while surrounded by some first-rate Detroit four-wheeled hardware (including a 1966 full-size Chevrolet sedan, a very early Chevrolet Corvair four-door, a 1966 full-size Ford, and a Rosa Parks-style "Old Look" GM transit bus).