AMF Company History

AMF Bowling, Inc. is the leading bowling company in the world. It manufactures a complete line of equipment including automated lanes, pins, balls, and shoes; operates more than 500 bowling centers in the United States and nine other countries; and also makes billiard tables and runs golfing facilities through subsidiaries. Expanding rapidly in the late 1990s, AMF suffered huge losses due to both the Asian economic downturn and the company's own overly ambitious business plan. The debt-ridden company has subsequently instituted cost-cutting and quality improvement measures in an effort to remain viable. Investment banking firm Goldman, Sachs & Co. owns a majority interest in AMF Bowling.

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Beginnings

The roots of AMF Bowling date to March 16, 1900 when the American Machine Foundry Co. was formed by Moorehead Patterson. The New Jersey-based concern began as a manufacturer of equipment for the tobacco industry, and continued to ply its trade in this field over the next several decades. In the late 1930s an inventor named Fred Schmidt patented a method for picking up and re-setting bowling pins through the use of mechanical suction cups. Schmidt initially approached Brunswick Corporation, a leading bowling products manufacturer, but his appeal for financial backing was turned down. Brunswick itself had earlier attempted to create a pin-setting device, but had abandoned the concept as unworkable. Without backing, Schmidt sold the rights to his invention, at which point American Machine picked up the scent. They bought the patents, and then spent six years fine-tuning the idea. In 1946, at the American Bowling Congress's annual tournament in Buffalo, New York, the first fully automated 'Pinspotter' was unveiled. Although many in attendance were impressed, the two-ton prototype proved unreliable, and another five years were spent refining the machine.

Reintroduced in 1951, the perfected Pinspotter was greatly improved, reliable, and accurate.

The Pinspotter, which American Machine leased to alley owners for a fee of 12 cents per game, caused a revolution in the bowling industry. Prior to its availability, all pins had to be reset by hand, with stereotypically surly and unkempt teenage boys the usual workers, earning five to ten cents a game.

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Diversification and Slot Cars

In the wake of this success American Machine began to diversify. AMF began to manufacture commercial grade slot car tracks in the 1960s, and might be best known by slot car fans for buying out another manufacturer, American Tracks, in the late 1960s. The intent was to put slot racing tracks in Bowling centers. They also bought the slot car portion of Cox through another holding of theirs called Leisure Dynamics. The plan was to use Cox exclusively in the centers.

Although the reason is speculative, the fact is that they closed down both operations. They changed the name of all slot car tracks in stock to AMF and shipped them to Europe. Not one AMF track was ever located here in the U.S. in a Bowling center or other Commercial Raceway. Most all of the Cox equipment, cars and controllers, were hauled to the dump in Los Angeles. Because of the wholesale destruction of the product back then, Cox cars and controllers today are very hard to come by.

Too much, too late. At the height of popularity, there were 3,000 slot car centers in the United States. By 1968, there remained 250. By 1969, only 50 were left. In Germany there were 120 centers in 1966, but by 1968 there remained only 4. In 1967 there were 13 commercial centers in France, reduced to one in 1969 and finally none in 1970. The same situation occurred all over, from Belgium to Brazil.

An interesting side note to the AMF story; During the same time they were disposing of the number 1 slot car track company, the number 1 controller company, and the number 2 car company, they ran an article in the Wall Street Journal stating that their entry into the slot car racing industry was a big mistake. They stated that their slot related companies were losing money and they feared that slot racing was a bigger fad than hoola hoops, and therefore would die a greater death. In doing so, they not only fulfilled their own prophecy, but missed out on years of popularity that, while indeed waning, lasts to this day.

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