Lange’s new owner was headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey and was already an institution not just in the sporting goods business but also in the ski industry. It was one of those giants like Anderson & Thompson or Beconta who sold everything ski and then some. During these years, the licensee agreement with Dynamic skis turned into a bona-fide Lange ski manufacturing operation that would complement its boot division. Very soon it would also add the revolutionary, retractable Burt binding and, before its time, Garcia was already offering the first integrated set of ski components (boot, ski and binding) that it truly controlled.
The famous poster showcased two Lange products; the boot and the ski
On the product side, the Comp II and Pro II iterations were leaving room for the new Lange Banshee which would be the forerunner of a long dynasty of simple, conventional boots. Top ski racers moved up to that model, including Gustav Thöni and Annemarie Moser. In 1978, the Garcia corporation, of Teaneck, New Jersey, unable to compete against Japanese fishing reel makers went into bankruptcy. Mitchell, a French fishing reel manufacturer was Garcia’s main creditor and ended up owning the diversified New Jersey distributor.
Marc Lumet, a Frenchman working for Mitchell was charged of selling the various Garcia assets, including two tennis racquet factories in Maine.
This poster about speed also including the Burt binding, showed here with the Banshee boot
At the same time, Rossignol, the French ski maker was looking to diversifying into tennis and seized the opportunity of purchasing these turn-key facilities. This is how
Lumet met
Boix-Vives, the majority shareholder and CEO of Rossignol, a company traded publicly on the Paris Stock Exchange. While some assets like the skis and the bindings didn’t find a taker,
Laurent Boix-Vives saw an opportunity in adding a high-performance boot product to his ski empire and became interested in Lange
my mom BANNED the "keep those tips up" poster from my room...I wore Lange t-shirts from Broomfield to my new "surfer dude" high school in San Diego (just like the school in "Fast times at Ridgemont High)due to my mountain background in San Diego I was an "expert" at our new ski shop, we worked with the Garcia boys and sold Lange, Fischer, Olin, The Ski & k2 with scott boots too... I had my Lange orange BANSHEE's, they were great, took them to BYU for my freshman year on the ski team..my US made Dynamic's VR17 destructed in two weeks of race training... ended up with some older VR70's for GS..did not know about the licence issues... Lange was ALWAYS COOL... I think that the Palmer twins were Lange ski & boot pro racers right JF?
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