In a message dated 5/17/2006 10:33:42 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, classicrendezvous-request@bikelist.org writes:
Personally, I'm less turned off by the dropouts than the paint/decal job. It's beautifully executed, but it sure doesn't look like any 3V I've seen. The white head and seat tubes just don't look right (to me, at least), and to my knowledge, the 3V never had MASI on the front of the fork blades (at least not on the stock models). The seattube and downtube decals looked accurate, but they could have used the right head tube decal. It might have been an "original" decal for some models (I've seen it on a Torelli-era Pista), it wasn't used on the 3V. A different decal was used on both the American and (Alberto) Italian 3V, with the only difference between the two being a small printed "HI-FI" (whatever the heck THAT meant!) added in Alberto's decal.
Regardless, I bet it looks awesome in person.
IP Merkin Providence (first nice day in over a week), RI
I agree about the paint... it's not something we normally associate with 3V's (though two-color paint jobs were an available option, I've seen at least a couple of 80's GC's that were done this way, plus a handful of Carlsbads). I don't care much for the downtube panel, though I think I would if it were smaller, as seen on many Brit bikes and on some early 60's Masi Specials. Also, the white on red with yellow lettering is way way too similar to eRichie's signature colors. I wish they were reversed... red on white is the Faema team design which is a long-time favorite among Masiphiles and I'm sure it would have been a huge hit.
The head tube badge hearkens back to the old metal badges on the Masi Specials (though the original turquoise has been changed to green) and I think it is a wonderful choice, regardless of whether or not it's appeared on a 3V before. While this badge and the "Masi" lettering on the fork blades may not have appeared on the 3V, this design did appear on several Masis in the 90's, like the Gran Corsa (just barely visible in these photos):
_http://hometown.aol.com/bobhoveyga/myhomepage/Bicycles/93MasiGC/93GranCorsa.h tm_ (http://hometown.aol.com/bobhoveyga/myhomepage/Bicycles/93MasiGC/93GranCorsa.htm)
Fork blade decals also appeared on many Team3V's in the early to mid 90's. I'm not too familiar with the late 90's frames, it is possible that the fork blade decals made their way over to the 3V by then as well.
Bob Hovey
Columbus, GA