Harvey said: [The Atala] ... had some odd Campy sheet metal derailleurs - a material Campy never mastered as well as Huret.
I think Huret was the unequaled master of sheet metal. All the Campy sheet metal stuff was junk and Italians hate the compromise of cheap stuff anyway. "If your stupid/cheap enough to buy it, whose fault is that" is the basic attitude. Suntour gave up on sheet metal with the "Skitter" and became the masters of economy castings. Simplex went from elegant metal to elegant plastic and back.
The Lambert Suntour copy was the bottom of sheet metal. Few survive today. Not many survived a week of use, then the rest got tossed when Suntour enforced its patents. The nadir is the Campy Gran Turismo. Talk about big hat, no cattle.
I bet the Huret stuff was a nightmare to assemble though and they spent more on that than Suntour spent on casting molds plus assembly by a factor of two if not five. Basically, more parts = more assembly cost, a lesson I learned bitterly as an engineering intern putting together a prototype modular telecom equipment rack for Bell Labs. When a fairly good bike mechanic has to spend eight hours to put something together- you have a problem.
Joe Bender-Zanoni
Great Notch, NJ