From: marc garcia _marcgarcia80@ameritech.net_ (mailto:marcgarcia80@ameritech.net)
A gentleman came by to look at an OT bike I had listed locally, he was riding an interesting looking frame, although free of decals. He said he bought it from performance bike shop (the chain) back in the 80's. According to him, they bought out a bunch of masi's overstock and sold them under there own brand name. This seems far fetched to me but I was just curious enough to see if this urban legend has made it beyond this gentleman's mind and my garage.
marc garcia chicago IL
Interesting story, wonder if there's any truth to it?
David Moulton says he was laid off in 1981 due to "an excess of inventory" (and indeed I've seen almost no 1982 Masis, apparently there were enough 81's in the warehouse to meet demand). I suppose it is possible that some of those bikes were sold off.
A more likely scenario is that they are some of the very early Gran Corsa/Nuova Strada frames that Billato built. The first couple of batches they sent over here were supposedly horrible and they were sold off (I heard they went to Asia but no telling where they eventually ended up).
If he comes in the shop again, snap a photo of the seatstay ends, fork crown and BB (underside)... should be easy enough to identify the model and approximate date from that.
Bob Hovey
Columbus, GA