The Diamond Back Black & Silver Period

Table Of Contents
  1. Diamond Back branding and decal changes
  2. Black and silver era BMX Bike Models

The Diamond Back Black and Silver period was a design and brand philosophy ushered in when Sandy Finkelman came on board in the early 80s.

Sandy, who ran a bike shop and race team had tired of the need to stock and support an ever increasing range of bike colours at his shop. His practicality – keep the colour scheme simple. Black and Silver (or chrome) component and frames go together and look stylish, no matter what. This theme also gave birth to the name of the legendary Silver Streak – inspired by the sight of the DB team riding around the tracks – they appeared as Silver Streaks.

A resident of Southern California, Sandy took inspiration from the Los Angeles Raiders, who’s uniforms are grey and black. The similarities to this team’s outfit are clear and can be seen below.

Diamond Back branding and decal changes

Another change brought by Sandy, was the dropping of the established Snakehead logo which has been prevalent since very early Diamond Back days.

They reduced the head-badge to the initials D.B. and placed it in a diamond shape. This Diamond and silver branding made it’s way across all literature, posters and manuals.

Towards the end of Sandy’s tenure (1983), they brought back the snake head badge on both the Viper and SilverStreak (from reading old conversations, Sandy seemed unaware of this).


By 1984, a new Diamond Back logo was in place, again referring to the simple D.B. in a Diamond shape albeit using an updated font.

For more information, see our Diamond Back BMX logos section.

The pre Silver and Black period included bikes such as the Large Pro, MX and TK which used reds, blues and chrome.

Black and silver era BMX Bike Models

The Silver and Black period includes the following bikes:

Whilst most of the bikes in this era were chrome frames with black or dark/smoked components, the Harry Leary Turbo flipped this on its head, with a distinctive smoke frameset and handlebars with chrome components.