Dale Brown noted:
> But Haro~ Masi has a new replica that is the closest yet and almost
> gets it right. See it here:
>
> http://masiguy.blogspot.com/
>
> The dropouts are the only turnoff that I see after a quick look.
Agreed, but if the buyer is running a modern drivetrain (with an aluminum-axled rear wheel and titanium skewer), it's a more practical way to go. The first (and last) time I made the mistake of running a lightweight skewer in Campagnolo horizontal dropouts, the wheel moved on the first pedal stroke and rubbed off a nice patch of paint inside the left chainstay. It was impossible to get the skewer tight enough. I now know better and only use steel skewers, but I sure wish I'd have read Sheldon's article on "boutique" skewers BEFORE it happened. At least it's not a no-name generic dropout.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/
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