A great deal had been written about the cast aluminium fork that appears to have caused so much grief to the riders of the early Lambert bikes,and although I have been in the cycle industry actively in the UK for nearly 40 years after having taken a short break away from it in the 60s, I was never aware of the problems with the fork. When I started retailing again in the 70s the Viscount range was very well known and respected, with the top-of-the range "Aerospace" model being very popular in that tier of sales below the genuine hand-built frames.The bronze-welded frames were known to be very light, and as I recall, bore a decal testifying to the nature of the tubing. The company even supported a team of Pro riders for a while.
In England at that time it was assumed that all lightwieghrt frames were built from one of the range of Reynolds 531 tube sets..although I remember that the 531SL version was launched in the mid-70s and Raliegh were using the 753 tubes sets. Accles and Pollock's "Kromo" had ceased to be produced, but frames were coming in from France built from Durifort, Vitus, Jex, and from Italy using Columbus and one or two less known brands.
No one in the trade seemed to know what non-lightweight tubing was being used, apart from TI's "Tru-Wel". Apparently many reasonable quality frames, ie good quality sports frames were using Mazzucato tubes from Italy.
Viscount however in their search for "home-grown" materials and products sourced their "Aerospace" tubing from a company called Phoenix, a manufacturer based in Wednesbury not far from Birmingham. Not much is known about Phoenix tubing except that it was thought to be a plain gauge seamed , rather than a double-butted drawn and seamless tubing. Additionally it was a Chrome-Moly rather than a Chrome-Manganese. It might have been used by other builders but I cannot remember any references to it.
It did however surface again some years after the Viscount Company finally closed its doors, and was used by Falcon Cycles as the three main tubes in the companies top-of-the-range frame of that time. I can't remember the model, but in the UK it was finished in a flam. burgundy with some chrome somewhere in the rear triangle. The front forks were sourced from Tange, the lugs were long point Prugnat with windows. The frame when built into a bike used the Campag Gran Sport groupset. Maybe it was exported to the States. I recall seeing the new model in the office of Billie Holmes, the former ace time-triallist and roadman, who was at that time - early 80s - the Sales Manager for Falcon. Billy claimed that there was a weight-saving in the main triangle of 4 ozs when compared with 531DB.. and of course it was much cheaper.
The tubing also found its way into the workshops of a number of lightweight frame-builders who rather unscrupulously substituted the tubing for reynolds 531 DB, but the frame decals never told the truth, Slightly later on Falcon suffered a very bad fire in its paint plant, the reult of which is that several thousand "fire-damaged" frames were sold off as salvage, only to enter the retail supply chain carrying all manner of makers' names.. including some well-known ones.
So if you have a frame answering this description.. look closely at the rear drop-outs and if they are Shimano's long road version of the well-known Campagnolo ones.. start wondering.
Norris Lockley...Settle, Uk