Poster showing an unknown early or prototype Super Record FD

[Gazelleer]

I recently found an interesting early seventies Campagnolo poster on the web (don't remember where). It shows the early Campagnolo Super Record groupset with an unfamiliar type of front derailleur. Is it a prototype that never went into production or has someone actually seen one?

 

[Gazelleer]

Interestingly, it has the same unusual pivot point arrangement as the early C-Record FD that appeared more than a decade later:

 

[Ian Raleigh]

Well spotted, I will ask on a well known FB page about this mech' and report back.

 

[Ian Raleigh]

Could be a Valentino from when they tried making cheap stuff, so I'm told!

 

[Gazelleer]

Thanks for asking but nah, I don't think they would put a cheap derailleur on the poster of the brand new, state-of-the-art Super Record groupset. Besides, the Valentino was a push-rod design up to 1978, when the Nuovo Valentino parallelogram version appeared.

Valentino:

Nuovo Valentino:

 

[Midlife]

It looks like something that never got past the prototype stage. I came across some magnesium alloy stuff bitd that only made it to hour record bikes .....

Shaun

 

[Gazelleer]

A prototype is very likely, I just never heard about this particular item. The seatpost on the poster appears to have the better known black seat cradle clamp bars that never made it to the production phase either.



I read that Campagnolo first thought about more black parts for the Super Record than just the rear derailleur. Black seatpost cradles, black chainrings and a black titanium headset. A 1974 Raleigh brochure shows the black rings, a black headset that has a clearly different shape than the Nuovo Record and final Super Record and black seatpost cradles (but oddly not the cradle clamp bars as shown in the poster)

BTW the front derailleur on the Raleigh is an ordinary Nuovo Record.

 

[Midlife]

First super record stuff to hit our shop came with a silver front mech which I thought was a bit odd. Like the first Dura Ace came with a Crane rear mech.

Not as weird as Suntour who were a complete mystery

Shaun