Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 18:31:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Raymond Dobbins <raydobbins2003@yahoo.com> To: Classic Rendezvous Bike List <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Subject: [CR] Sort of a follow up: Last year for Nuovo Record?
thanks to all who replied with info about the bubble q/r being introduced in 1978 as part of several cpsc mandated changes.
the campy timeline indicates that NR and SR were being produced simultaneously for a number of years (about 14 years (Greg)). it also states that the last year for SR was 1987. did campy continue to produce NR until 1987 as well, or did they phase it out before 1987?
ray dobbins
miami florida
Yes and no. That's a little tough to answer definitively. NR rear derailleurs stopped being dated after 1985 ("11" code), but there were then some very late ones made with no date markings at all (these turn up NOS on UK eBay from time to time, in particular, and were likely made from parts that were "lying around" IMO). Recall that only two things were really "Nuovo Record:" the rear derailleur, and the bottom bracket parts. The rest were just Record, with many tracing back to 1958 or so, and were common with SR components in most cases.
A lot of what was going on was Marketing SOP, plain and simple - there have been NOS SR two-bolt seatposts showing up lately in Gran Sport boxes, for example! Hey, they were just left-over obsolete inventory that Campagnolo wanted to get rid of (in the late '70s)!
My guess? SR and SR Reduced were so popular by then that relatively little (N) Record was being sold in 1986-1987 by comparison, so Campy was likely using up any baskets of previously-made component parts and finishing any work-in-progress final assemblies, but not much more than that. No tooling money would have been spent on (N) Record parts during this period, unless it was deemed absolutely necessary. No new casting or forging runs would have been undertaken, unless it enabled them to complete and sell a large batch of components relatively quickly. Woulda been cool to be a Product Engineer in one of those meetings around that time!
Remember that Tullio was already gone during this period. Valentino was not as emotionally attached to the "old stuff" as was the old man..... The Company was also floundering a bit already, struggling to find it's new "identity" under Valentino, etc....
Greg Parker
Dexter, Michigan