In a message dated 3/18/01 2:56:18 AM Eastern Standard Time, davidg@iag.net writes:
<< The 1973 Campy catalog (No. 17) has a Super Record derailleur listed >>
I think when Chuck Schmidt, Gabe Konrad and I were working on aspects of the Campy Time Line, we finally researched the issue and discovered that the SR group, including the derailleur, was introduced in the fall of 1973 and winter 1974 at the various trade shows.
The components as previewed did not make it into actual production as displayed. One of the differences were the black colored chain rings which were reported as being a strange new alloy and "black clear through." They ended up being silver aluminum ally as we now know. The preview rear derailleur was pretty much the same in its production form.. BUT the reality was that the consumer (non pro-team, etc.) might not have had the ability to purchase a SR group for at least a year after the introduction. So functionally the SR stuff was really distributed until maybe 1975ish...
I remember in the early 1970s it was extremely hard for bike shops to even buy normal Campagnolo parts at times, supplies were scarce and fought over. In maybe 1973, I remember trying to find a set of NR brakes for a customer... No distributor had them for sale after months of searching...finally I found a set available at the wholesale price of $100.00, which was about half of the total price (wholesale) for most complete Pro bikes! Outrageous! Actually that was also the normal retail price if you could fin then so that particular distributor was sorta profiteering because of the scarcity of the parts.
There may have been a strike about then at Campy or something because I think that was when Raleigh came out with the well known RRA (re-using an old name) which featured mostly all French parts. The word was that they could not deliver Pros and Internationals adequately so introduced this yellow and white model to address the need for high end models.
Dale Brown
Greensboro, North Carolina