Wes Gadd wrote:
>
> I've heard an apocryphal story that Tullio was inspired to design the
> Gran Sport after closely inspecting a Nivex. Any truth to this, or B.S.?
Wes, you must have missed my previous post from an hour before:
The Dancing Chain (Frank Berto section of book): "Either Nivex or J.I.C (both French companies) made the first parallelogram rear derailleurs in the late 1930s, ten years before the Campagnolo Gran Sport." On page 149 both the Nivex and J.I.C are pictured.
Dates of each company's first use of parallelogram design in their derailleur: Campagnolo Gran Sport parallelogram design - 1951 Huret Alvit parallelogram design - 1958 Simplex Juy Export 61 parallelogram design - 1961
As can be see in the photos below, only the Campagnolo and Simplex look anything at all alike.
Nivex (1946) photo:
http://www.classicrendezvous.com/
Campagnolo Gran Sport (1951) photo:
http://www.geocities.co.jp/
Huret Alvit (1958) photo:
http://www.classicrendezvous.com/
Campagnolo Gran Sport (1960) photo:
http://village.infoweb.ne.jp/
Simplex Juy Export 61 (1961) photo:
http://www.geocities.co.jp/
Chuck Schmidt
South Pasadena, CA