Dynastar's History

At a time when Dynastar is fighting for its life, I fondly remember how important that brand has been in my earlier ski years and I wanted to write its history, which by the way is available nowhere and is probably ignored by Dynastar’s current management.

Like its famous “moustache” logo introduced in 1966, borrowed from the coat of arms of Sallanches, France, where it’s been located since 1963, and that represents the meeting point of two small local streams, the brand had been a product of confluences between other brands, technical ideas and various ownerships.

I noticed the first pair of skis related to Dynastar in 1963 in the window of Alson Sports in Morzine, France. It was then branded “Starflex” and the model name was “Compound RG5,” the top was black phenol with clear resin sidewalls showing the fiberglass weaving.

The product was made by a company called “Les Plastiques Synthétiques” based in Paris and the brainchild of Claude Joseph, the Marker distributor in France. A maverick, he got actively involved with the newly created French Ski Pool to wedge Dynastar into it and be able to supply the French Team. He remained a long time pool president.

Aside from Rossignol's “Fiberglass Jean Vuarnet”, the Compound RG5 were the first non-traditional wood or metal skis I had ever seen. At the same time, Dynamic skis, which had only made wood skis, that was transitioning to its own “torsion-box” design, was called to help Les Plastiques Synthétiques, that had just opened a brand new factory in Sallanches, next door to Chamonix, France.

This plant was owned by “Les Ressorts du Nord”, the manufacturing company for the Aluflex metal skis, and Claude Joseph became its general manager. Its torsion-box fiberglass ski, the Compound RG5, was conceptually very close to the up and coming VR7 from Dynamic.

Problem was that the RG5 tips were breaking like crazy, so Starflex asked Dynamic for help to help them fix the problem. It also asked Dynamic to help with its production quality-control and to “certify” the quality of Starflex products, by affixing a label on the skis with the words “ Contrôlé par Dynamic”, adding some badly needed credibility to its new product.

In spite of its efforts and involvement, Dynamic never had any financial interest in either Aluflex or Starflex. However, some nasty bickering soon developed between Dynamic and Dynastar around the new “Dynastar” name, a contraction between Dynamic and Starflex; complete with the exact same typeface, which goes a long way to say that Dynamic’s trademark attorney wasn't paying attention!

The numbering system of their skis (RG5 vs. VR7 and RG10 and VR17) also became a hot potatoe. For those sticklers with details, the “RG5” moniker meant “resin-glass, five years of development” while “VR7” almost meant the same in French with “verre-résine,” but this time the development time had somehow been bumped to seven years…

Sallanches must have been a hotbed of creativity when it came to naming products (more on that later...) Claude Joseph, the father of Starflex, also developed a line of ski poles that was named Kerma, just by simply turning the Mar-ker name around!

(to be continued…)