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1997 Bontrager Warthog

You are looking at a super rare, Santa Cruz, CA built Bontrager Warthog 20" BMX frame. They didn't build very many of these this particular year. Never been built, paint is in near perfect condition. Some small chipping on bottom of the BB, 21.5 top tube, reverse 990 mounts, and those trademark Keith Bontrager headtube and bb to chainstay gussets. Rasta headtube sticker, all original graphics.

elfdoublecross · 2006-12-19 6:15pm

i love the paint scheme on this frame. nice!

NICKTCFCSB · 2006-12-20 7:45am

SO BADDDDAZZZZ

FatManBMXer · 2008-02-27 7:40pm

I have this same bike all built up but its red with white stickers, and it had Canti mounts on it instead of u brake mounts. Very cool midschool bike not too many of them out there.

jsrinvestments · 2008-07-02 8:54pm

Actually I'm pretty sure these were built by Waterford cycles in Waterford wisconsin, not by Bontrager himself in Santa Cruz. Bontrager started the BMX frames right after Trek bought them, and that is why the US frames were made in wisconsin. INfo courtesy of Waterford Precision Cycles. They aslo have welded up race frames for Standard (125R model, 250R model). Some of the bontrager frames (silver, B29, without gussets) were made in china.

GAry · 2008-07-11 6:58pm

Heya,
The story I heard was they made 5-10 bmx prototypes in the santa cruz factory.
Yes, Most of them were mass produced by Trek, there are a couple of "good" ones out there.
I was also told the prototypes were using S&M pitch forks, and Trek decied to cut cost and mess up geometry on the bikes with their odd fork dropouts.

jsrinvestments · 2008-07-16 10:00pm

Could be Gary. Talking to Keith, he said he couldnt tell the prototypes from the mass produced models as long as they had the right gussets. There is a silver model I think called the B1 that was more mass produced as a complete bike that was a Tiawan frame actually. Mine's definately not, interesting researching them though. Sure rides nice. Also the diesels and Warthogs were made with different top tube lengths. I was told by Keith that 3 different lenghts of each were available, but I've only seen two. Would love to get my hands on a cruiser version..

jsrinvestments · 2008-07-16 10:03pm

Also, the US Frames all were promoted with 1 1/8th steerers but actually had 1 inch BMX steerer tubes, which would be more bontrager-ish, from what I read on an old post from KB> Mine does. I know the B1 has a 1 1/8th threadless steerer, what does the cruiser have?.

jsrinvestments · 2008-07-20 8:22pm

One other detail I verified was that all of the Trek made bikes have a WT on the beginning of the longer serial number on the frames. The WT stood for Waterloo, as in Waterloo Wisconsin. What I cannot verify is that the california made bikes have a serial number that starts with a B for Bontrager. Would make sense as that is how the other Bontrager built Race-lite, etc mountain bikes were stamped.