Thanks to Brett Horton for the marvellous photographs! I'd never before seen a photo of Merckx in 1968 on a bike with "Faema" decals.
In Eddy Merckx: The Greatest Cyclist of the 20th Century by Rik Vanwalleghem, on page 46, there's a photo of Eddy riding the 1968 Grand Prix E3, followed close behind by a fiendishly grinning Rik Van Looy. Merckx is on that same white bike that you see in the Cycle Sport photo, with no decals and with centerpulls. The Tour of Flanders took place that year on March 30. The E3 generally is at the end of March or beginning of April, so it's possible that it took place right after the Tour of Flanders, and he used the same spare bike with which he finished the Tour of Flanders.
Faema was just getting back into cycling sponsorship in 1968 after a four-year layoff, and they probably didn't yet have spare bikes painted in team colors for each rider.
Tom Adams asked: "Does anyone know if the Tour of Flanders was the first race for Eddy with Faema? Do we know if he rode Milan San Remo in '68? I know he didn't win, but did he ride?" Merckx won the Tour of Sardinia (Feb. 24-March 3), rode Paris-Nice and abandoned due to a knee injury (March 7-March 12), came in 31st in Milan-San Remo (March 19), and rode three days of Catalan Week (March 26-March 28) as a preparation for the Tour of Flanders. (Source: above-mentioned book.)
Mordecai Silver
NYC